Causality analysis on health care evaluation criteria for state-operated mental hospitals in Korea using Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award model.

Hospitals today are pressured to move away from the conventional health services management techniques and provide higher-quality health care to survive in intense competition. In our study, we aimed to develop health care evaluation criteria for the mental health care sector based on the existing Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award model, and verify the causality of the evaluation model to lay groundwork for future research on the outcomes of national quality awards for mental health care. We focused on comparison groups comprising five state-operated mental hospitals in Korea using 92 survey questions derived from the MBNQA criteria for health care through structural equation modeling techniques. We verified that Leadership drives Foundation and Direction, which affect System that creates Results with 15 hypotheses supported out of 18 hypotheses established. We believe our findings will provide valuable implications to the top management of mental hospitals for self-examining quality management and promoting competitiveness.