Coming soon to your clinic: High-quality ART

Abstract

The concept of 'patient-friendly' medically assisted reproduction includes a robust set of clinical practice principles, to improve the quality of subfertility care. This concept is an important move away from the sole focus on effectiveness and high pregnancy rates in assisted reproduction technology (ART). Although the concept of 'patient-friendly ART' has several strong points, we feel it is incomplete. For achieving true high-quality ART, the concept should be extended to two more dimensions: timeliness and patient centredness. Moreover, we propose a change in the concept's name to the less ambiguous 'high-quality ART'. © The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved.