INVESTIGATING THE READINESS TO IMPLEMENT TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN REMOTE HOSPITALS: A CASE STUDY FROM SAINT HELENA ISLAND

The aids from London to Saint Helena is currently being reduced due to global economic challenges. Despite these economic challenges, public healthcare in developed and underdeveloped countries has introduced the TQM approach since the 80s to facilitate change, increase team involvement, and improve the quality of healthcare services while saving costs (Chiarini & Vagnoni, 2017). If TQM can be introduced in the health directorate of Saint Helena Island, it can bring about a culture of quality healthcare services; thus, the main customers (patients and employees) will be satisfied while saving costs, which have long-term benefits (van Schoten et al., 2016). Reduced costs of poor quality, effective implementation of TQM will lead to a significant reduction in costs of poor quality, such as rework and patients suing the hospital. There are many more benefits of implementing TQM in healthcare that is not listed by this study stated by other researchers in quality management. This is an empirical study to examine the possibility of TQM implementation in Saint Helena General Hospital (SHGH) to define TQM in healthcare further and to propose an implementable framework. The primary research question for this study is the implementation of TQM in the remote island of Saint Helena General hospital possible. The study attempted to answer the following questions 1) What TQM means in healthcare services. 2) What are the benefits of TQM implementation within hospitals? 3) How to apply TQM in hospitals? The study proposes a framework to implement TQM in SHGH.