Quality improvement around the world: how much we can learn from each other

The USA National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care--organised by the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (Boston USA)--attracts many people from outside North America. At the 1999 meeting 20 countries were represented. A session on "Quality improvement around the world" was included in the pre-conference programme to bring together people working in many countries to explore and compare their experiences in a programme of short presentations (table 1). This article draws together some of the themes that emerged from the presentations and from the discussion.