Glossary

Quality

Can be defined as a measure of the degree to which delivered health services meet established professional standards and judgments of value to the consumer. Quality may also be seen as the degree to which actions taken or not taken maximize the probability of beneficial health outcomes and minimize risk and other untoward outcomes, given the existing state of medical science and art. Quality is frequently described as having three dimensions: quality of input resources; quality of the process of services delivery (the use of appropriate procedures for a given condition); and quality of outcome of service use (actual improvement in condition or reduction of harmful effects). Quality programs are commonly called QA, TQM, QI, CQI and other acronyms, all referring to the process of monitoring quality in systematic ways.

Quality Assurance (QA)

Can be defined as a measure of the degree to which delivered health services meet established professional standards and judgments of value to the consumer. Quality may also be seen as the degree to which actions taken or not taken maximize the probability of beneficial health outcomes and minimize risk and other untoward outcomes, given the existing state of medical science and art. Quality is frequently described as having three dimensions: quality of input resources; quality of the process of services delivery (the use of appropriate procedures for a given condition); and quality of outcome of service use (actual improvement in condition or reduction of harmful effects). Quality programs are commonly called QA, TQM, QI, CQI and other acronyms, all referring to the process of monitoring quality in systematic ways.

Quality Assurance Reform Initiative (QARI)

A process developed by the Health Care Financing Administration to develop a health care quality improvement system for Medicaid managed care plans.

Quality Improvement (QI)

Also called performance improvement (PI). This is the more commonly used term in healthcare, replacing QA. QI implies that concurrent systems are used to continuously improve quality, rather than reacting when certain baseline statistical thresholds are crossed. Quality improvement programs usually use tools such as cross functional teams, task forces, statistical studies, flow charts, process charts, compare to charts, etc.