It is only in the last decade that surgeons, particularly cardiac surgeons, became
aware that the evaluation of quality of care is a fundamental aspect of their practice.
Even today, the most read reports about the quality of care in hospitals or departments
are produced by media, insurance companies, or institutions trying to define centers
of excellence. Under the auspices of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) in North
America and the European Association of Cardio–Thoracic Surgery (EACTS) in Europe,
a strong international movement was initiated by cardiac surgeons to place the evaluation
of quality of care under the governance of the health care delivery team [
1
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]. Initially considered a research issue, the evaluation of quality of care today must
answer a legitimate growing demand from patients, families, hospital managers, referring
physicians, insurance companies, government agencies, courts, and the media. A rapid
shift in the mentality of many surgeons has occurred. In the past, the quality evaluation
process was perceived by most surgeons as an unpleasant questioning of one's practice.
Today, for a rapidly increasing number of cardiac surgeons, quality evaluation has
become a legitimate scientific necessity. Evaluation of quality of care is a new chapter
of modern medicine, which follows a different rhetoric and demands the need to measure
and compare. “One cannot evaluate what is not measured” is a classical statement of
business management. Many instruments used in the past to describe results are now
obsolete. New methods, parameters, and vocabulary are needed to measure quality of
care. A new mentality is emerging; it is a climate of self-evaluation of quality of
care driven by scientific methods.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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© 2007 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
