[Requirements of clinical excellence]

The history of the evidence based medicine, health technology assessment, health economics and quality improvement proved to be a success story in developed countries. It is partly due to that change in the attitude towards health care occurred in the past ten or fifteen years. Two major factors played important roles in this process. On the one hand, the booming health care costs in developed countries, and on the other, the health benefit was not proportional to costs. First, governments around the world applied the tool of cutting costs, which proved to be uneffective even in mid-term. It was soon revealed that people prefer good-quality health care rather than the cheap one. These disciplines are having a more and more considerable influence on medical care and nursing. However, impacts on health care are not automatic and can be most different regarding both their quantity and nature. They may result in a significant improvement in prevention, diagnostics, cure and care, and may yield a more appropriate use of ever-limited resources.