Quality assurance in gastrointestinal endoscopy: An Egyptian experience

Over the last four decades, gastrointestinal endoscopy has become of paramount importance to diagnose, treat and prevent diseases of the digestive tract. Practice variation, however, is likely to have an important effect on the effectiveness of endoscopy and can impair the delivery of high-quality endoscopic procedures. There have been increasing demands to assess the quality of service and track and improve patient outcomes. Quality assurance has paved its way into professional guidelines for physicians. Developing a modern endoscopy unit demands the institution of a quality assurance programme, continuous training and monitoring of service delivery. This article describes our experience in implementing a quality assurance programme in endoscopy in a secondary care government hospital in Egypt. The implementation of quality assurance and improvement programme can lead to dramatic improvements in the quality of endoscopic care and patient outcomes. Quality assurance and continual improvement can be applied in developing countries.