[An integrated quality policy for and by veterinarians: 1. Status of business]

Several initiatives are being developed by the livestock industry and veterinarians to improve quality. This article describes the term quality control. Although action has been taken to improve quality, at the moment there is no integrated policy of quality control for veterinarians. To date, initiatives have been limited to defining the preconditions for such policies and little has been done to establish the content of veterinary interventions.