An overview of quality and safety in health care

Excerpt

Patient safety is of prime importance to anesthesiologists; there are, however, other dimensions to quality in health care that also merit our attention. Anesthesia is not a treatment in itself but is integral to achieving successful outcomes for surgical patients; therefore, it is equally as important as any other aspect of patient care. Furthermore, anesthesia often equals or exceeds surgery with respect to the challenges involved, the resources required, and the risk to patients. These factors are reflected in the high standards of training, practice, and research that are characteristic of modern anesthesia in many (but not all) parts of the world. These standards are hard won, and maintaining and advancing them will continue to require considerable effort and investment in the face of increasing international financial restraint. It therefore behooves anesthesiologists to understand how the services they provide contribute to the overall quality of health care. …