A growing number of countries worldwide are recognising a common need to build systemic capacity for safeguarding and improving quality of health care. Each country has a unique set of priorities and dynamics driving the speed and the substance of the quality agenda, constrained by the reality of the availability and distribution of resources. While acknowledging the considerable variation in c...

Teams make up the building blocks of health care and every team—from the executive to the coal face—is composed of diVerent professionals, ideally possessing a variety of skills necessary to produce safe and eVective care. We are constantly reminded of the value of diversity within teams, but the reality is that working together from a variety of perspectives is sometimes diYcult to achieve. Th...

Modern approaches to improvement in health care need modern approaches to measurement. Our traditional use of matrices of retrospective data has been described as like “trying to drive a car by looking through the rear view mirror”. Statistical process control tools appear to have much to oVer despite the concerns expressed about using techniques taken from industry. In this issue of Quality in...

Modern approaches to improvement in health care need modern approaches to measurement. Our traditional use of matrices of retrospective data has been described as like “trying to drive a car by looking through the rear view mirror”. Statistical process control tools appear to have much to oVer despite the concerns expressed about using techniques taken from industry. In this issue of Quality in...

A growing number of countries worldwide are recognising a common need to build systemic capacity for safeguarding and improving quality of health care. Each country has a unique set of priorities and dynamics driving the speed and the substance of the quality agenda, constrained by the reality of the availability and distribution of resources. While acknowledging the considerable variation in c...

Teams make up the building blocks of health care and every team—from the executive to the coal face—is composed of diVerent professionals, ideally possessing a variety of skills necessary to produce safe and eVective care. We are constantly reminded of the value of diversity within teams, but the reality is that working together from a variety of perspectives is sometimes diYcult to achieve. Th...

The past 10 years have seen the introduction of clinical audit, guidelines on clinical and organisational delivery of care, and more recently an emphasis on evidence based medicine. An intelligent member of the public, particularly if a trained manager, may believe that such an array of managerial tools would be related to an easily measured improved outcome, particularly in a common adult dise...