Towards strategic quality management in health care

This paper briefly explores the history of quality management principles and their application to health care. Defining some of the principles that have evolved in quality management, especially in health care management, the paper discusses the analysis of and means used to improve quality using structure, process and outcome variables, with special focus on examples of the use of these in developing countries' health care systems. Finally, the paper describes some of the measurement and implementation challenges for those interested in quality management in health care