QMDA, quality management and departmental administration.

Today, quality is part of our practice. Anaesthetists are involved in a medical science and want to be excellent at it. Anaesthetists are also involved in departmental organisation and are providers of care, a service to the patients. Quality is a method to obtain efficiency (efficacy and economical advantages). We consider our patients no longer as such, but as health-customers. Anaesthetists are health providers. The patients-customers have their own expectations and they compare the service between the different hospitals. On the other hand, health care is a public matter and in most countries depends on a governmental financing. Quality means efficacy, ethics and economics, including medico-legal aspects. But how can we use a quality and management concept (QMDA) in our daily practice? This is the subject of the paper.