Quality Management as a Dimension of Evidence-based Medicine

Abstract

Council of Europe, starting with 2000, emphasized that the improvement of the quality system is a set of integrated and planned activities and measures at various levels in the health care organization, aimed at continuously assuring and improving the quality of patient care. The quality management system, irrespective of the level of approach (organizational, local, national, European), needs to be implemented, assessed and, above all, developed on the basis of standards and practice models. The purpose of this analysis is to emphasise the fact that quality improvement efforts and the support of the management/decision-makers are the key drivers of quality and patient safety improvement at any level of the health system. Based on the latest theoretical and practical considerations, we could say that is necessary to evaluate continuously not only the results obtained from the analyses of the quantitative and qualitative data, but also the tools used in the field of quality management, in order to decide based on clear evidence and real practice. In this context, as a conclusion, we could talk about a complex activity for health care organizations, in order to implement, evaluate and continuously improving a quality management system.

Keywords

• quality
• health care
• management
• patient safety