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To face the profound changes from both inside and outside, health-care sectors have begun to implement effective quality management (QM) practices following manufacturing and other service industries. However, there is relatively little literature on the development of reliable and valid measurement instruments to assess the implementation of QM practices in hospitals. Based on the high-class QM practices of manufacturing and other service industries, the paper extends the previous empirical research to the health-care sectors and creates a nine-construct measurement instrument. For validation purposes, a cross-sectional survey involving 204 quality managers and directors of large public hospitals was carried out between April and October 2013 in China. We explore the reliability, detailed item analysis and validity of the instrument by applying psychometric methods. Empirical results support the claim that the instrument developed in this study is reliable and valid. It could be an aid for hospitals to assess their QM status and identify the most important areas for quality improvement.
