[Tools for assessing healthcare delivery].
BACKGROUND
Assessing the quality of care has become an essential part of the medical process. In France, the Professional Practice Evaluation requires a sound knowledge of these techniques.


BACKGROUND
The different tools that can be used to carry out quality assessment are presented, with their specific applications. Two main categories can be used. The first are information synthesis techniques such as consensus conferences, practice guidelines, and panellist's appropriateness rating. The second category is based on comparison to a reference: clinical audit, targeted clinical audit, or appropriateness evaluation protocols. Other, less commonly employed approaches include a problem solving approach, which is often included in total quality management, clinical care pathway, risk management, mortality morbidity conference, adverse event monitoring, and statistical process control charts.


CONCLUSIONS
These tools will be widely used in the next few years, because the recent changes in French law could increase their use.


CONCLUSIONS
A good knowledge of these techniques is needed in order to improve quality assessment.
Vergnenègre
A
A
Service de l'Information Médicale et de l'Evaluation, Service de Pathologie Respiratoire et d'Allergologie, Hôpital du Cluzeau, CHU de Limoges, France. avergne@unilim.fr
D003245:Consensus Statements as Topic; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D017064:Process Assessment, Health Care / Q000379:methods*