Quality costs: a study in the service of nutrition and dietetics of a hospital in the process of accreditation

Abstract

The study aims to identify the quality costs existing in the Nutrition and Dietetics Service (NDS), since hospitals are complex organizations that are inserted in a context of high costs and scarce resources, thus demanding quality in their services and processes. In this respect, the need for cost management is evident, seeking efficiency, without compromising the quality of the services provided, considering that quality is a fundamental element for the survival and competitiveness of organizations. Therefore, the costs of quality aim to assist in strategy and organizational management, can be classified into costs of prevention, evaluation, internal failures and external failures. The study is configured as a qualitative research, of a descriptive nature, cross-sectional, and with case study used as strategy. As for data collection, we used on-site observation, as well as interviews with nutritionists, waitresses and financial manager, in order to identify the quality costs existing in the institution. The main results showed that the NDS presents prevention costs (training for employees and standardization); evaluation costs (questionnaires about the quality of meals) and costs of internal failures (waste and corrective maintenance), however, there is not, until the moment of this research, a specific treatment regarding the costs of quality in the hospital, neither are they evidenced separately in the organization's financial statements and management reports.