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What is Good Quality of Health Care?
Author(s) -
Magne Nylenna,
Øyvind Andresen Bjertnæs,
Ingrid Sperre Saunes,
Anne Karin Lindahl
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
professions and professionalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.31
H-Index - 6
ISSN - 1893-1049
DOI - 10.7577/pp.909
Subject(s) - quality (philosophy) , health care , perspective (graphical) , quality management , diversity (politics) , subjectivity , nursing , psychology , medicine , sociology , business , computer science , political science , epistemology , marketing , philosophy , artificial intelligence , anthropology , law , service (business)

A diversity of definitions of quality exists, that frequently contain aspects of complexity, relativity and subjectivity. This paper provides an overview of key components in the quality debate within health care, including different perspectives and dimensions of the quality of care. Definitions of the quality of health care reflect the characteristics of health services, and are useful for measurements and quality improvement. Over time the patient perspective of quality has gotten increasing weight, and in quality improvement there has been a shift from individual responsibility for doctors and health care personnel to systems thinking. We argue that the quality approach in health care should be more standardized and that health care-specific definitions of quality should be used when the relationship between physician professionalism and quality is investigated.

Keywords: quality, health care, systems thinking, patient perspective, outcome, indicator, measurement, improvement.

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