The Quality Assurance Project (QAP) was initiated in 1990 to develop and implement sustainable approaches for improving the quality of health care in less developed countries. QAP has two broad objectives: 1) to provide technical assistance in designing and implementing effective strategies for monitoring quality and correcting systemic deficiencies; and 2) to refine existing methods for ensuring optimal quality health care through an applied research program.
QAP helps LDC health managers to apply systematic methods for problem identification and resolution. Through the projectís research component, known as Methodology Refinement, QAP staff is developing, refining, and validating cost-effective measures for improving the quality of health care. The project team is working toward this goal by reviewing the current state-of-the-art in quality assurance and collaborating with host-country colleagues in conducting seminal studies on how to best achieve optimal quality of care. Priority research areas include cost-effective data collection methods, establishing and instituting standards for provider performance and support systems, methods of identifying and prioritizing operational problems, and simple problem-solving methods.
Selected QAP research activities will be featured in the Quality Assurance Methodology Refinement Series. This first report, Quality Assurance of Health Care in Developing Countries, describes QAPís approach to introducing quality assurance methods into LDC health care delivery systems. It discusses the feasibility of implementing quality improvement mechanisms, describes QAPís quality assurance process, and provides an overview of how to build a quality assurance program.
