ABSTRACT
The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science in the USA defined the quality of health care as follows: the primary goal of a quality assurance system should be to make health care more effective in bettering the health status and satisfaction of a population, within the resources that society and individuals have chosen to spend for the care. Care is inefficient if it includes elements that are harmful or make no contribution to an improvement in health. Most people have to take on trust what doctors tell them; but without quality assurance, it is sometimes hard for patients to be sure that their trust in the profession is not being abused. It is quality assurance that distinguishes medicine from quackery. In a quality assurance programme, a quality measure is used to detect correctable deficiencies in health care, with a resulting improvement in the health status and satisfaction of the patients served.
