What is quality?

Trying to define quality is reminiscent of the story about the blind men describing an elephant. One felt the elephant’s leg and thought the creature was a tree. Another grabbed the elephant’s trunk and said it was a snake. One man touched the elephant’s side and declared it a brick wall. The other felt the elephant’s tail and said, “It is a rope.” In the end, though each of the blind men thought he was right in his definition, all were wrong. The author of the story, John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887), concludes:

“So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!”

The idea of quality has many definitions, ranging from the practical to the transcendent. Quality is anything that is both useful and satisfies a customer’s needs or expectations. Quality is also seen as conforming to specifications or an advantageous combination of good price and desired features. Quality is perceived as excellence, freedom from defect, and something that adds value to a product or process. When frustrated trying to come up with an actual definition, people will often say, “I can’t define it in words, but I know it when I see it.”

Quality is an essential, distinguishing attribute of a person, product, or process, and, like beauty, is often in the eyes of the beholder. To add to its elusiveness, what is considered quality today may not be considered quality tomorrow, so it is changeable and evolutionary in its nature as well.

How much quality do we need? In medical transcription (as in other products and processes), we need as much quality as is necessary to ensure the accuracy and clarity of written medicolegal documentation used for patient care and billing purposes.

What does quality cost? When something is done right the first time, quality is virtually free. What is expensive is the constant fixing of un-quality. Every time a layer of un-quality must be fixed, a product or process becomes more expensive and time-consuming. Un-quality can also be downright dangerous, the cost of which is often inestimable.

As individuals or as a team, we either contribute to the quality of a product or we add to its un-quality. Regardless of the definition of quality, one thing is certain: The cause of quality resides in each one of us.