title: Improving quality and patient safety by minimizing unnecessary variation.
abstract: Quality and safety in health care have proven difficult to precisely define and measure. In other fields, quality is defined as the absence of unnecessary variation and process improvement efforts are gauged by their ability to reduce variation. This article explores how this definition can be applied to various attributes of image-guided procedures.
authors.affiliation: Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, 510 South Kingshighway Boulevard, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Jacobs
authors.forename: James R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Duncan
mesh_terms: D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015641:Radiography, Interventional / Q000592:standards*; D025321:Surgery, Computer-Assisted / Q000592:standards*; D014481:United States; D014656:Vascular Surgical Procedures / Q000592:standards*