Quality Assurance

When several Baltimore city school principals complained that they had too little time to do far too much, Alan E. Small could have brushed it off as a commonplace gripe that he, as an internal auditor, could do little to resolve. Instead, he sketched out a sheaf of flowcharts, documenting the schools' chain of command and the number of staffers who reported directly to each principal. After sharing his findings with school system authorities, Small drew up new flowcharts that reassigned many of the schools' business activities, from managing bookstores to equipment inventory, to new chairpersons.

By law, Maryland essentially allows its doctors to police themselves - and that has resulted in a relatively low rate of disciplinary actions against physicians, at least one national study shows. The Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland - the state's medical society and the main lobbying arm for Maryland doctors - controls two-thirds of the seats on the state regulatory board that oversees physician discipline. MedChi members also play the determining role in investigating alleged cases of substandard care and, by virtue of their control of the Maryland Board of Physician Quality Assurance, in deciding whether disciplinary actions should be taken.

In the Region Lockheed's satellite Internet venture falls short on capital Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Astrolink venture has raised little more than a third of the $3.7 billion needed to get its satellite Internet service off the ground and is asking early investors for more money. Lockheed Martin, Liberty Media Corp., Telecom Italia SpA and TRW Inc. have promised $1.33 billion to the project, Lockheed said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Astrolink still needs $2.4 billion to complete its planned nine-satellite system.

A Carroll County General Hospital surgeon has filed a $5.25 million lawsuit against the hospital, claiming the staff destroyed his medical practice when he complained about the care patients were receiving. In a lawsuit filed in Carroll Circuit Court, Dr. Wenifredo N. Iglesia of Taneytown says that when he criticized the quality of care at the county's only hospital, medical staff, "motivated by hatred" and with "the deliberate intent to injure" him, circulated rumors that he was mentally unstable, causing him to lose patients and income.

WASHINGTON -- A Lockheed Martin Corp. Titan IVB rocket's failure to put a $800 million military communications satellite in the proper orbit April 30 stemmed from faults in testing, quality assurance and software development procedures, the Air Force said yesterday.The process didn't find and correct a software programming mistake made in early February by a software engineer for the No. 1 defense contractor's Denver-based astronautics sector, the Air Force said."The error went undetected by both the internal quality assurance processes and the independent verification and validation process," said the Air Force.

The state health department will launch an HMO quality assurance unit, Dr. Martin P. Wasserman, the state health secretary, said yesterday."We've always had the responsibility for quality, but we had read the statute narrowly in the past," Wasserman said.Last year, he said, he decided that a "more expansive" reading of the department's authority was "consistent with what everybody wanted us to do."The new unit will divide the work of monitoring health maintenance organizations with the Maryland Insurance Administration, which has a complaint unit and, under a new law effective this year, a hearing process for determining if HMOs are denying medically necessary care.

New positionsMcCormick names Fajardo quality assurance directorMcCormick & Co. has appointed Raul F. Fajardo as director of quality assurance. He will lead the quality assurance managers' group responsible for developing and implementing improvements to the Sparks-based spice maker's quality system. Formerly with Nabisco Foods, he is a member of the Institute of Food Technologists and the American Society for Quality Control. The Westminster resident is a native of Cuba and a graduate of Michigan State University.

New positionsMcCormick & Co. names Lawrence vice president of quality assuranceMcCormick & Co. Inc., the Sparks-based spice company, selected Roger T. Lawrence as vice president of quality assurance. The Timonium resident is a DePaul University graduate and is a member of the American Society for Quality Control and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.Koscher, Milliken appointed to posts at Sheraton HotelThe Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel has appointed Jon Koscher general manager and Sandra Milliken account manager.

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), which accredits HMOs and other health plans, announced yesterday it had selected HCIA Inc., the Baltimore health data company, to sell its performance and accreditation information on about 250 health plans."

HERE'S WHAT we know so far about how health care fares in a free market. Competition does not reward high quality. Instead, it rewards low cost.I don't mean to suggest that cost-saving dooms first-rate medical treatment.Efficiency can serve quality, as long as the medical judgments are truly made in the patient's interest.But you can't be sure that's always the case. Employers pick health plans based on service and price. They may get assurances of quality from the plans that bid for their business.