What Is Quality in Medicine and Why Do We Need to Work on It?

Key Points

• The ultimate goal for any clinician and healthcare system is to deliver quality care.

• High quality care should be: safe, effective, timely and patient-centred.

• Quality improvement in medicine has proven to be challenging, complex and at times difficult to sustain.

• In order to deliver quality in medicine, a culture shift is needed, along with recognition of time and effort needed for quality initiatives to be successful.

• Collaborative work between healthcare professions, managers, policy makers and patients is needed in order to improve quality.