Quality management in radiology: historical aspects and basic definitions.

In today's extremely competitive economic environment, the quality management processes used by industrial companies have become commonplace at hospitals and are proving successful in improving quality and controlling costs. Continuous quality improvement (CQI) methods provide a relatively new way, compared with quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) methods, to improve the quality of health care. Continuous quality improvement should be considered a philosophy rather than simply a methodology; it assumes no endpoints in improvement efforts and does not attempt to replace the older concepts of QA and QC but rather to reap their benefits and take them to a higher conceptual level. Continuous quality improvement has 4 foci: (1) to determine and meet the needs of patients and customers, (2) to approach quality improvement holistically on the basis of the identification of the underlying cause of poor performance, (3) to apply fact-based management and scientific methodology, and (4) to empower its practitioners to improve quality on a daily basis. Health care institutions and radiology departments use a variety of CQI systems or models, including the model of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the Six Sigma model, and the Model for Business Excellence of the European Foundation for Quality Management. The International Organization for Standardization 9000, which creates a suitable organizational environment for the implementation of a CQI system, can be considered an effective QA and QC method.