Asiri Group of Hospitals celebrate World Quality Week in style

The World Quality Day was initiated by the United Nations in 1990 to raise international awareness on the important role quality plays in ensuring nations’ prosperity and is now celebrated annually on the second Thursday of November.

Many leading organisations that believe in providing a better service through quality celebrate Quality Week/Quality Day in line with these objectives globally. As a leading health service provider in the country, Asiri Group of Hospitals held the Asiri Quality Week 2012 for the second consecutive year to emphasise their constant focus on quality.

The Group Head Human Resources and Human Resources Development shared the objectives of the program. “Our industry is such that we need continuous improvement in our processes, products and services. It is through constant focus on quality that we could really maintain our standards. Therefore, quality consciousness is very important at all levels across the group.

“Celebrating Asiri Quality Week in all our hospitals including Asiri Hospital Matara at the same time was itself a big success as we all took part in various events organised, only focusing on quality. It not only created greater awareness amongst staff but the enthusiasm, camaraderie and commitment portrayed by all staff was commendable. The ultimate aim of this whole exercise is to provide better quality service to our valuable patrons.”

The inauguration ceremonies took place in all five hospitals of the group on 12 November 2012 with a large gathering in the presence of the Chief Operating Officer, directors, divisional heads and staff members of the Asiri Group.

Several events took place during the Asiri Quality Week – a photography competition, train the trainer sessions in quality circles, selection of the best 5S division and the drama competition are some of the events that stressed the importance of quality. This was a clear demonstration of staff being aware of the need to upgrade standards and maintain quality and the willingness to continue the progress which was an achievement in itself.

As decided during last year’s quality week celebrations, the best logo that was selected as the quality logo during last year’s competition was introduced as the Asiri quality logo, while the newly composed quality song by the students of the Nurses’ Training School was institutionalised as the Asiri quality song.

This was also used as the platform to continue the total quality management program initiated by Sunil G. Wijesinha, a member of Asiri Surgical Hospital PLC board of directors who was also the former Chairman/Managing Director of Dankotuwa Porcelain PLC. Under his guidance, the ‘Train the Trainer’ program was conducted for 110 quality champions to train staff and implement quality circles across the group.   

The top three winners of each category were awarded a trophy along with a certificate by the Chief Operating Officer who was fully supportive of this initiative. All participants were awarded a commendation letter to appreciate their efforts.

A spokesman added, “The challenge we face is to maintain the momentum and standards. We have come up with a clear action plan and a monitoring system to ensure compliance through quality audits and awareness sessions and the success of this exercise is the commitment driven by the top management that cascades to all levels across the group.”