Rose Kavalchuck, vice president, Quality Systems and Managed Care; corporate compliance officer, Heywood Hospital, Gardner, MA

Rose Kavalchuck, an ASQ member since 1993 and a senior member, is the vice president for Quality Systems and Managed Care. She is also the corporate compliance officer at Heywood Hospital in Gardner, MA. Kavalchuck also serves as the administrator for the Heywood Physician Hospital Organization Inc., an entity that brings together a collection of independent physician practices for the purpose of managed care contracting and improving the quality of care provided to managed care patients. She has more than 32 years of experience as a professional in healthcare with a focus on quality.

Kavalchuck earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in biology, holds a master’s degree in health administration, and she is a registered medical technologist. She is a certified quality manager of quality/organizational excellence, Six Sigma Green Belt and Six Sigma Black Belt.

Kavalchuck believes her love for the quality profession is due in part to the influence her mother had on her while growing up. Her mother shared stories of her experience as a quality control inspector for a firearms manufacturer during World War II. Kavalchuck admired her mother’s creativity and unrelenting quest for perfection in the face of significant ongoing adversity.

Her first professional exposure to the quality sciences came from her work as a medical technologist in the ‘70s and ‘80s. She developed her interest in quality management at a time when the quality techniques of Walter Shewhart were the backbone of quality programs in clinical laboratories and when the walls of laboratories were adorned with the ever-present Levy Jennings charts. Kavalchuck recalls her years in the lab—in a position which was then known as the chief technologist—as some of the most gratifying and enjoyable. The excitement of merging basic science with a strong orientation toward quality control and quality improvement, in addition to the opportunity to work in a professional environment to help patients, was the stimulus for Kavalchuck to pursue graduate education to broaden her understanding of the healthcare industry.

In the late 1980s, Kavalchuck accepted a position in hospital administration as a director of professional services, which included oversight for a number of hospital technical and diagnostic services such as laboratory, radiology and cardio-pulmonary. It was as a result of this promotion that she gained a greater appreciation of the need for a multidisciplinary approach to quality improvement. As part of this position, Kavalchuck assumed responsibility for general oversight of quality processes throughout the hospital. During the late ‘80s, the approach to quality in the healthcare industry still had a very strong quality audit focus, but a movement was underway nationwide to push for a more integrated systems approach to continuous quality improvement. The focus on integration, collaboration and a systems approach, coupled with a return to more rigorous scientific measurement and improvement techniques, provided Kavalchuck with an opportunity to teach the principles of quality management and coach managers in ways to adopt new improvement processes for their respective disciplines.

The mid-1990s to the 21st century was a time of rapid growth for the hospital, and with the development and implementation of new programs, Kavalchuck’s responsibilities expanded to encompass more operational and planning aspects of hospital administration. In the mid-2000s, her primary interest turned again to the quality field, and she pursued ASQ certification.

Kavalchuck feels this is a challenging and exciting time to be in healthcare. Healthcare has traditionally lagged behind many other industries with regard to processes and techniques for quality management and improvement, but it is now beginning to catch up. The excitement is generated by vast opportunities that exist to improve the quality of patient care and improve patient safety, but it is also those opportunities which present the greatest challenge. With concerns about escalating healthcare expenditures, which show only minimal returns in improvement in quality and safety, one of the most significant challenges is to determine where to focus quality improvement efforts and how best to allocate limited resources. There are now reports that say the United States is falling behind other developed countries in improving the health status of their populations. It is imperative that the healthcare profession embrace as its highest priority the improvement in the quality and efficiency of the healthcare delivery system.

By utilizing the scientific principles of quality management, and by applying a much needed disciplined approach to systems change, Kavalchuck is certain the healthcare industry can make great strides in bringing quality healthcare to every person in the country. That energy and drive are now reflected in national and regional programs like those promoted by the Institute of Healthcare Improvement, the National Quality Forum, Leapfrog Safety Practices, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the Joint Commission. Rigorous quality methods and techniques, which until recent years were often only seen in the nonhealthcare sectors, are now common language for many healthcare quality professionals. Six Sigma’s define, measure, analyze, improve and control techniques, including lean process improvement methods, as well as failure mode effects analysis and poka-yoke, are now routinely included in the healthcare quality professional’s toolbox along with the more traditional plan-do-check-act cycle. These scientific approaches to quality are extremely valuable to help bring about changes in an industry that historically has relied heavily upon individual experience and a strong orientation towards the maintenance of tradition.

Kavalchuck is optimistic that many healthcare professionals, who, during their education and training for their specialties received some level of quality training, will be able to make the transition from the older traditional approaches in healthcare to a more effective and efficient approach in quality improvement. Quality improvement is more data driven than ever, and healthcare professionals will need to further improve their understanding and use of that data. In addition, the healthcare industry is becoming more transparent with regard to what information it provides to the public. With increasing transparency, there is a need to become more adept at helping the public to understand the value and limitations of the public quality data that is now readily available to people.

Collaboration, coordination, commitment, prioritization, discipline and focused efforts will bring together healthcare professions, insurers and government payers, and patients themselves to raise the bar for the country’s healthcare system. This is a great time to be a quality professional in healthcare. It is rewarding to help make a difference in the lives of patients.