Assessment of Knowledge, Understanding, Awareness and Practice on Quality System among Personnel of the National Institute of Health, Thailand

Abstract

         The National Institute of health (NIH), Thailand is an organization that has been implementing quality systems as a management tools since 2003. All relevant International standards have been adopted in the institutional quality systems. The quality systems have been transferred into practice by using standard operation systems (SOPs) in all work processes which cover all levels of personnel. As the systems have been timely implemented, there is a suspicion on knowledge, understanding, awareness and quality practice of current personnel working in this manner. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the perception of quality of the NIH personnel with additional assessment of communication efficiency by survey design methodology. The results showed that knowledge, understanding and awareness on quality systems were at high level while quality practice was at highest score. Personnel with different duration of services had no statistical difference in the level of knowledge, understanding, awareness and quality practice (p > 0.05). In terms of communication efficiency, it was found that circulars were the most effective mean while e-mail was the most simple and thorough channels to receive quality information. The results of in-depth interview indicated the
issues to be considered as continuous quality improvement, namely creating systematic learning of quality systems. These included increasing learning channels and up to date learning materials and providing an organizational knowledge management process for self-learning.In addition, the right communication channel should be used to communicate with all levels of personnel in order to achieve effective awareness throughout the organization.