Wiener Privatklinik is operated in accordance with Total Quality Hospital Management (TQH) guidelines. The main principle of the TQH philosophy is not to content oneself with the achieved standards, but to continue to take new and innovative steps, particularly in the field of quality management. 

The diversity of available quality management systems made it necessary to find a reasonable, easily communicable name for the hospital’s quality management concept. Therefore, in 1996 the term of "Total Quality Hospital (TQH)" was introduced at Wiener Privatklinik and from this time has defined the whole quality management work of the hospital.

When a structural forum and an independent staff unit for quality management, headed by nursing director and quality manager, were established in 1997, this marked the beginning of a process to develop high-level standards guiding the care for our patients and the support of our accredited physicians.

In the context of TQH, customer-oriented organisational structures were created, where our nursing, hotel and administrative staff co-operate with our accredited physicians to offer our patients high-quality services. 

Therefore it was only a logical step that Wiener Privatklinik followed its Total Quality Hospital philosophy and had its whole nursing department certified according to the internationally acknowledged ISO 9001:2001 standard. In September 2003, Wiener Privatklinik was the first private hospital in Austria to receive the certificate from the TÜV certifying office of TÜV Austria, and has set itself the goal to further improve all processes and structures on an ongoing basis.

ISO certificate for our nursing department

As a result of current events, the quality of nursing services in hospitals and nursing homes has increasingly become a topic of discussion. Wiener Privatklinik demonstrates that as a private institution it attaches great significance to maintaining and improving the quality of its nursing services in a sustainable way, especially against the backdrop of current developments. In line with its Total Quality Hospital philosophy, Wiener Privatklinik had its whole nursing department certified according to the internationally acknowledged ISO 9001:2000 standard. After making intensive efforts in the field of quality management, in September 2003 the certificate was awarded by the TÜV CERT certification office of TÜV Österreich.

The ISO standard determines guidelines for the establishment of a quality management system and is used as an instrument to structure the whole organisation. All processes and structures of the nursing department of Wiener Privatklinik were documented for the certification process and were thus continually improved. In this way, nursing risks can be more efficiently identified and potential errors can be minimised. A permanent analysis of strengths and weaknesses in the end also improves customer satisfaction.

All employees of the hospital – not only its nursing staff – have been very motivated and have actively contributed to the project, i.e. they have documented all their activities and critically examined existing processes. The measures taken for the ISO certification also included the description of interfaces, the active participation in the design of improvements and the identification of risks and sources of errors. Such an intensive analysis of nursing activities benefits everyone. It particularly helps new nursing staff members to settle into their new area of work. But also senior nursing staff members use the system in order to evaluate and continually improve their work. Finally, it goes without saying that the improvements also benefit the accredited physicians and the clients of Wiener Privatklinik.

The certified quality management handbook is available to all employees via the intranet of Wiener Privatklinik, i.e. all staff members have unrestricted access to the latest procedural instructions and the most frequently used forms.

Wiener Privatklinik receives excellent marks from supplementary insurers

The TQH philosophy of Wiener Privatklinik is also confirmed by the very positive results of a survey conducted by the Association of Austrian Insurance Companies, which was carried out last year among all patients with supplementary insurance cover in Austria. "As one of Vienna’s private hospitals we are proud that we have achieved the highest score in this evaluation. Especially with regard to patients’ satisfaction with aspects such as hospital services, hotel and other services, physical well-being, professional expertise or respect for patients and their needs, Wiener Privatklinik received a very positive assessment," states Dipl.KH-Bw. Robert N. Winkler, the administrative director of Wiener Privatklinik.