Quality monitoring of care: ask the patient

In 1998 and 1999, we organised a questionnaire to be filled out by chronic haemodialysis patients. The first part dealt with general information data on the specific patient and the second part dealt with quality assessment data given as experienced by the individual patient. This second part included a ranking of preference by the patients and aspects patients wanted to see improved in the future. As we implemented the EDTNA/ERCA Clinical Standards and Core Curriculum, the monitoring tool, as described in this paper, was developed in order to monitor the effect of implementation. As a result of this two-year monitoring process of quality of care, we can follow up the care provided by our multidisciplinary team. It has proven a very useful tool to find out what is to stay as it is and what is to be improved. Simply closing the loop!