Dr Rick L Edgeman is QUEST
Professor and Executive Director of
the Quality Enhancement Systems
and Teams Honors Program at the
University of Maryland. Formerly, he
was Professor and Director of the
SABER Institute at Colorado State
University and he has been a
visiting professor in the areas of
quality, innovation and statistics at
the Aarhus School of Business
(Denmark) and Luleå University of
Technology (Sweden). From 1998 to
2002, Dr Edgeman served as
Executive Director of the
MultiNational Alliance for the
Advancement of Organizational
Excellence. Among his citations and
activities are selection as one of
the “New Voices of Quality: 21 for
the 21st Century” (Quality Progress,
January 2000) and editorship of
the quarterly journal Measuring
Business Excellence. He lectures
extensively internationally and has
worked collaboratively with
colleagues from 15 nations. He also
serves on the advisory council of
the E-TQM College, Dubai.
a report by
Dr Rick L Edgeman
QUEST Professor and Executive Director, Quality Enhancement Systems and Teams Program,
University of Maryland
Merciful, Not M ercenary –
Bottom Lines and Six Sigma
Ours is an increasingly complex world and its
inherent complexity is made ever more apparent by
burgeoning
difficulties
that
span
societal,
environmental, technological and economic realms.
The healthcare community interacts closely with
each of these areas. Solutions to daunting problems
will require intelligent and co-ordinated human
desire and effort, enabled by superior approaches
deployed effectively to produce superior results in
vitally important areas. Significant contributions to
these solutions must come from the medical and
healthcare arenas and, given the rapidity with which
problems are encircling us, these contributions must
be put into play propitiously.
That is precisely where Six Sigma comes into play:
rapid development and deployment of breakthrough
solutions in areas of critical need. Many of the
methods of Six Sigma are familiar as statistical
methods that have been in