Quality management at Balgrist University Hospital

As a privately-funded university hospital, we must respect stringent quality and performance standards. Continuously improving to the quality and efficiency of our services helps us to achieve excellent medical quality, satisfy our patients and secure positive financial results. Sound structural requirements - based on the quality of our management, the underlying processes and structures and the commitment of our employees - are key factors in achieving excellent results.

First full ISO certification for a Swiss university hospital
Balgrist University Hospital has been fully ISO 9001:2008-certified since early July 2008. This successful certification was a result of the hospitals efforts to continually improve the quality of its services.

This certificate is more than just a label. Quality management is intended to ensure that our clinic produces high-quality results and improves on these where possible: the ISO 9001:2008 certificate is an initial - and very significant - step in this direction and can be used as an excellent basis for further development.

Underlying principles of ISO standard 9001:2008

• customer orientation
• leadership / management
  employee involvement
• process orientation
• system-oriented management approach
• continuous improvement
• factual approach to decision making
• mutually beneficial supplier relationships

The aim of our quality management system and the advantages of ISO certification
Written processes, checklists and specifications serve as a basis for us to continually monitor and improve our work, as are clearly established responsibilities and competences. This allows us to have more certainty and constantly improve the quality of treatment and care provided to our patients.

Documenting internal procedures both supports hospital staff in their day-to-day activities and helps us to avoid needlessly duplicating work. Moreover, clearly defined internal and external interfaces boost our employees’ understanding of the effects of their actions.

Optimising and constantly monitoring internal processes increases our efficiency and our competitiveness and improves the transparency of our activities through defined measurement criteria. Integration of new employees is also quicker and easier. Optimisation and monitoring efforts also contribute to the promotion of a corporate culture based on customer-oriented service, ensuring that the patient is at the heart of our interdisciplinary cooperation.

Finally, our successful ISO certification is not only crucial for improving service provision to our patients – it is also emerging as a key requirement in the political arena. The knowledge we gained while developing our quality management system proves that Balgrist University Hospital is able to manage its business processes, which, in turn, enables it to provide its clients with top-class, comprehensive medical quality.