Advancing Quality Health Care through Continuing American Board of Medical Specialties Board Certification

Quality is a core value of the medical profession. Board certification, morbidity and mortality conferences, and participation in hospital quality committees are just a few of the many ways in which the medical profession has evidenced its commitment to quality throughout the decades. Despite this fundamental commitment to quality, the health professions and health care industry have been slower to embrace quality science and continuous quality improvement (QI) practices than were manufacturing and engineering. Resistance to implementing formalized QI systems often was justified by financial concerns and the belief that health care is fundamentally different from those sectors that more readily embraced QI principles.