Effective, safe, and a good patient experience

We talk a lot about improving the quality of health care. But until recently if you asked people what they meant by quality you got a range of unmemorable answers. Then came the cumulative work of Sheila Leatherman and her colleagues, and in the UK Ara Darzi’s 2008 High Quality Care for All . Now everyone I talk to is using the same language: quality means clinical effectiveness, safety, and a good experience for the patient. This week’s BMJ has something to say on all three. On clinical effectiveness, Barbara Kuijper and colleagues ask what’s the right non-surgical approach …