5229.0: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 - 5:15 PM

Abstract #23417

Competency based service quality for public health

David B. White, PhD and John J. Newhouse, EdD. Health Services, Saint Joseph's University, 5600 City Ave., Post Hall, Rm110, Philadelphia, PA 19131-1395

Service quality has become one of the most significant developments in the human services fields in the past twenty years. Much of this challenge is due to the shifting paradigms of what it means to deliver operational and technological complex human services systems in an era of ever increasing customer service demands. There are major mandates for this change from the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, to the National Committee of Quality Assurance. No institution in human services can marginalize the importance of this trend. Faced with the external pressures to make a total organizational conversion to service quality along with the multiple internal issues such a process represents, many public health agencies need effective human resource strategies for success. One answer is competency based modeling. This session will provide participants with the skills to define the specific roles, behaviors and activities for service quality in their organizations and what measures of success represent. Such models assure that the service quality of individual staff members is tied strategically to the very core of the organization's mission, values, and purpose. The key is for participants to learn how to develop these competencies and then integrate and sustain them within the agency. See N/A

Learning Objectives: 1. Participants will learn how to develop the roles, behaviors, and activities for service quality in their organizations. 2. Participants will learn how to define what service quality measures of success represent.

Keywords: Competency, Quality

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: N/A
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

The 129th Annual Meeting of APHA