1 Defining and evaluating quality improvement in healthcare

There are many different definitions of ‘quality’ in healthcare across the different health systems in the world. For example, NHS England considers high quality care to consist of care that is safe, clinically effective and has a positive experience for the patient (NHS England, n.d.a). Going beyond the definition of quality, it is important to note that the process of improving healthcare also involves defining the important aspects of quality improvement as well as evaluating the standards achieved currently. We shall examine both of these processes (defining and evaluating quality improvement). Firstly we will tackle the question of ‘what is quality improvement?’