ABSTRACT
Background Quality and safety in healthcare have become major concerns in modernized societies over the past ten years. In 2001, the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences published the report “Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century” that emphasized the huge discrepancy between the expected quality of healthcare and the care actually provided. This report concluded that the healthcare system would need to change dramatically to assure the higher quality standards that society demanded1 and initiated a worldwide movement towards quality, accountability, and safety in healthcare provision.
