Abstract
As the fields of quality assessment and improvement become integral parts of medical practice, the roles of National Medical Associations, and other physician organizations in these endeavors have undergone major changes in scope and intensity as well. The survey based report in this journal by Levi et al. suggests some major overall trends but also notes wide variation from country to country. In this commentary, we touch on some likely reasons for the variation seen in the focus of physician organization participation in quality activities, and offer some suggestions for why expanded involvement by physician organizations may be critical to quality efforts going forward.
Highlights
As the fields of quality assessment and improvement become integral parts of medical practice, the roles of National Medical Associations, and other physician organizations in these endeavors have undergone major changes in scope and intensity as well
Some of this appears to have been a result of the way in which health care itself has developed in different areas of the world, especially in regard to public versus private models of financing, delivery and payment
Empirical evidence, from seminal reports like the 1999 report of the US Institute of Medicine [3], to the widely cited study of McGlynn et al [4] have suggested that professionalism, while very important, is insufficient to insure the highest quality of care possible for a given level of expenditures
Summary
As the fields of quality assessment and improvement become integral parts of medical practice, the roles of National Medical Associations, and other physician organizations in these endeavors have undergone major changes in scope and intensity as well. In the US in the early 1900′s, the Flexner report and subsequent changes in medical education led to the creation of a set of standards for health professions education.
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