PubMed1997
The European Regional Office of WHO develops in recent years overall activities to promote continuous quality development in member countries. Several innovated targets and indicators of the strategy of the programme Health for All as well as the extensive definition apparatus elaborated by the department for ensuring the quality and evaluation of technologies is also focused on improving the quality of care. In the submitted article the author discusses the basic philosophy of procedures of the systematic development of the quality of care which resulted from the common effort of the European Regional Office of WHO and the Association of National Medical Societies. The European Regional Office in collaboration with some European health institutions and medical societies developed also information systems and models of systematic development of quality of care which are excellent examples of what can be achieved on a horizontal level. This applies in particular to the programmes DIABCARE, WHOCARE, ORATEL and OBSUOUID. In the submitted paper examples are given of the implementation of these programmes as well as the pertinent fundamental references. The author mentions briefly also some forms of implementation in some advanced European countries. In the conclusion the author deals briefly with the essential aspect of quality of health care, i.e. the relationship of effectiveness and economy of health care.