A circle of arteries at the base of the brain, formed by the junction of the basilar, posterior cerebral, internal carotid and anterior cerebral arteries. Congenital defects may occur in these arteries and lead to the formation of aneurysm (see ANEURYSM).... Medical Dictionary

The outcome of care/service from an individual/user’s point of view. It is how well the care service supports the client/user to improve his/her quality of life.... Community Health

The principle by which all persons or things under consideration are treated in the same way.... Community Health

Individual outcome measure that extends beyond traditional measures of mortality and morbidity to include such dimensions as physiology, function, social activity, cognition, emotion, sleep and rest, energy and vitality, health perception and general life satisfaction (some of these are also known as health status, functional status or quality-of-life measures).... Community Health

QAPI establishes strategies for promoting high quality health care. First, each organization must meet certain required levels of performance when providing specific health care and related services. Second, organizations must conduct performance improvement projects that are outcome-oriented and that achieve demonstrable and sustained improvement in care and services. It is expected that an organization will continuously monitor its own performance on a variety of dimensions of care and services, identify its own areas for potential improvement, carry out individual projects to undertake system interventions to improve care, and monitor the effectiveness of those interventions.... Community Health

Standardized procedures, methods or philosophy for collecting, processing or analysing data, which is performed on an ongoing basis and aimed at maintaining or improving the appropriateness and reliability of health care services.... Community Health

An instrument for quality enhancement and quality assurance which uses groups of peers to assess and discuss the quality of their own work and develop strategies for improvement.... Community Health

The sum of all the activities which prevent unwanted change in quality. In the health care setting, quality control requires a repeated series of feedback loops which monitor and evaluate the care of the individual (and other elements in the health care process). These feedback loops involve checking the care being delivered against standards of care, identification of any problems or opportunities for improvement, and prompt corrective action, so that the quality is maintained.... Community Health

The sum of all the activities which create desired change in quality. In the health care setting, quality improvement requires a feedback loop which involves the identification of patterns of the care of individuals (or of the performance of other systems involved in care), the analysis of those patterns in order to identify opportunities for improvement (or instances of departure from standards of care), and then action to improve the quality of care for future patients. An effective quality improvement system results in step-by-step increases in quality of care.... Community Health

The quality of non-clinical attributes of health care units, such as cleanliness of the facility, adequacy of the furniture and quality of the food.... Community Health

The degree to which delivered health services meet established professional standards and are judged to be of value to the consumer. Quality may also be seen as the degree to which actions taken or not taken maximize the probability of beneficial health outcomes and minimize risk and other outcomes, given the existing state of medical science and art.... Community Health

The product of the interplay between social, health, economic and environmental conditions which affect human and social development. It is a broad-ranging concept, incorporating a person’s physical health, psychological state, level of independence, social relationships, personal beliefs and relationship to salient features in the environment. As people age, their quality of life is largely determined by their ability to access needed resources and maintain autonomy and independence.... Community Health

Years of life saved by a medical technology or service, adjusted according to the quality of those years (as determined by some evaluative measure). QALYs are the most commonly used unit to express the results in some types of cost-effectiveness analysis.... Community Health

TQM is synonymous with continuous quality improvement (CQI). It is an integrative management concept of continuously improving the quality of delivered goods and services through the participation of all level and functions of the organization to meet the needs and expectations of the customer.... Community Health

See “client quality”.... Community Health