Quality Improvement and Efficiency of Care: Are Acronyms Really the Way of the Future?

Quality improvement has become an increasingly important focus of health care over the last decade. In an effort to systematically improve quality, several organizations and programs have been developed, each known by a different acronym. This article describes the origins, mission, and methodology of the organizations and programs that have been established to standardize performance and improve quality. The role of these programs in health care, and the way they affect individual surgeons in practice, is then discussed.