Improving Healthcare Quality in Europe: Characteristics, effectiveness and implementation of different strategies

Summary

Quality improvement initiatives take many forms, from the creation of standards for health professionals, health technologies and health facilities, to audit and feedback, and from fostering a patient safety culture to public reporting and paying for quality. For policymakers who struggle to decide which initiatives to prioritise for investment, understanding the potential of different quality strategies in their unique settings is key.

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarises available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.