Construction of quality culture in a public hospital from a human management perspective: tensions and paradoxes

The purpose of this study was to explore about the meaning of quality discourse in a public hospital in Bogota, and particularly the role that human management plays in the construction of a quality culture, in order to glimpse the interests to which this discourse responds, and the tensions aroused. In the process of quality culture construction, it is observed an ambiguous conception of worker: as a fundamental element in the construction of quality system and as a cost to be minimized. It is concluded that the quality discourse responds to an economic-administrative logic which measurements and categories legitimates a health model based on the market and besides it is exposed the role of Human Resource Management –through the use of psychological techniques– in the reproduction of this model.