title: The emperor's quality clothes: for goodness' sake, let's take the strain off the word quality!
abstract: Quality is a much used word in health care. It clearly has positive connotations. Yet there is less than clarity in the literature as to what it means. This article suggests that quality has to have something to do with 'goodness' and indeed 'betterment'. It then argues that it follows that quality cannot be defined before we have sorted out 'good' and 'better'. The author appeals for these terms to be defined.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Sydney, New South Wales. gavinm@pub.health.usyd.edu.au
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mooney
mesh_terms: D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012660:Semantics