The role of hospital personnel in quality assurance activities at Danish hospitals

: Over the last few years there has been considerable activity concerning quality assurance (QA) in health care. In order to investigate the actual consequences, we mailed a questionnaire to all Danish hospital managements, asking them to distribute it to leading doctors and nurses. 349 questionnaires from 51 hospitals were returned. The questionnaire was concerned with QA-activities, topics and methods, organisational aspects and attitudes amongst the professionals. Forty-eight percent of all hospitals, evenly distributed over all hospital and department categories, were represented in the survey. Fifty percent of respondents were doctors, 40% nurses. Eighty-seven percent had started quality assurance activities, typically clinically oriented research where doctors were concerned, and typically projects concerning communication with patients when initiated by nurses. Both groups had many projects concerning personnel policy, especially educational aspects. 3% of the activities were concerned with patient satisfaction. Knowledge of quality assurance principles was not yet widespread among the professionals, but 87% expressed positive attitudes. There is a need to define the concept of QA and to spread knowledge of QA-methods, if a systematic approach to QA is to be implemented.