Introduction

Abstract

Medical quality management (MQM) has emerged as an area of medical specialization in recent history, and it has become widely recognized that the concept of quality in healthcare can be defined, measured, and assured. However, although many healthcare professionals have become engaged in MQM activities, very few receive any formal training or orientation in the field. Instituting more systematic, comprehensive medical quality training into the formative education of medical and nursing students and residents is the key to enhancing quality improvement, utilization review, and risk management activities in the clinical arena and fueling the supply of health services research and scholarly publications in the new specialty. Greater focus on MQM also tends to increase attention and effort on patient safety outcomes, upon which the reputation, clinical excellence, and financial success of healthcare organizations depend. Essential elements for a core curriculum in medical quality training should include epidemiologic measurement principles and biostatistics, organizational theory, performance review methods and systems, healthcare law, health economics, hardware and software applications for data collection and assessment, and medical ethics.