Quality assurance in the dental profession

The dental profession has traditionally attempted to ensure quality and to guarantee high educational standards by restricting licensure. Recently, many factors have increased public and government interest in the quality of care provided by health professionals. A framework for understanding quality assurance is presented. This framework incorporates with Donabedian's dimensions of structure, process and outcome the additional dimensions of system capacity and community. All dimensions of quality are assessed by comparison with an accepted standard. Quality assurance can be considered as occurring at a system level, a managerial level, and a practice level. All quality assurance activities work to fulfil society's requirements to maintain self-governing professional status.