title: Hospital quality assurance in The Netherlands.
abstract: Quality assurance in hospitals by means of an accreditation programme is becoming standard practice in more and more countries worldwide. Accreditation being defined as: "A self-assessment and external peer assessment process used by health care organizations to accurately assess their level of performance in relation to established standards and to implement ways to continuously improve". This article provides an overview of the current situation in The Netherlands.
authors.affiliation: The Netherlands Institute for Accreditation of Hospitals.
authors.forename: René
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Peters
mesh_terms: D006779:Hospitals, Public / Q000592:standards*; D009313:National Health Programs; D009426:Netherlands; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care