THE ORGANIZATION OF QUALITY ASSURANCE

Abstract

A WHO Working Group representing public health, clinical medicine, nursing and national agencies concerned with the planning and evaluation of health care met in 1987 to identify models for organizing quality assurance programmes in health care institutions. The report of the Working Group has three main sections: motivation for quality assurance, framework for evaluating quality assurance and recommendations. Identifying politicians, the public, health care managers and professional clinicians as key groups, the report discusses political, consumer, management and professional issues as motivating factors. Since some factors may be contradictory, it is concluded that care has to be taken to use the right kind of motives for different groups. Starting from the notion that the principle that all health care activities should be evaluated also applies to quality assurance, the report identifies the main elements in evaluation and suggests criteria for assessing the implementation of quality assurance. The 16 recommendations, with varying relevance for individual Member States, are addressed at national level to policy-makers and health authorities and at institutional level to administrators, managers and health-care providers. They range from the role of quality assurance in health policy through research on quality assurance, the role of a national quality assurance agency, information needs and policy commitment to managerial and clinical roles and coordination.