Quality management through a national quality award framework

Purpose – As the importance of health care is growing worldwide and it has undergone a significant change, this paper aims to report a case study in a hospital complex that implemented an excellence model framework.Design/methodology/approach – Reported in this paper is a case research approach in a hospital in Brazil. Data were gathered through semi‐structured interviews, direct field observation and archival data records. Then, the aggregation of results was done a posteriori to construct the case study.Findings – The empirical evidence in the paper has shown that the introduction of the quality management framework based on a national quality award enhanced quality awareness and improved service quality and organizational performance. In addition, the use of the framework at the hospital supports organization leadership in the journey towards quality excellence.Research limitations/implications – The paper is limited to a single case study. Replications among other samples are needed to validate curren...