Editors' Note

Building a comprehensive resource will require the help of managers at all levels. For that reason, we have designed Managing for Quality to make it easy for you to share your experiences and knowledge. Working together, we can build a dynamic and creative network of managers at all levels and in all types of programs, including governmental and non-governmental programs, and hospital-based, clinic-based, or community-based institutions.

An integral component of management improvement, quality improvement should be part of all the activities undertaken within an organization. Creating and sustaining quality services requires that we listen to and understand the needs of our clients; that we obtain the support of senior managers for quality improvement; and that we create an environment where managers and staff can work effectively together to provide quality services and to implement quality improvements.

Many different approaches, methodologies, tools and techniques are needed to improve management processes and service quality. We hope you will be able to adapt and use the materials in Managing for Quality to improve quality in all kinds of activities and programs, and at many different organizational levels. If this information has been useful, we hope you will be eager to share that information with your colleagues around the world through this website. Let's transform the proscriptive and confining discussions of quality improvement in the textbooks, and create together a pragmatic, flexible, experience-based resource for improving quality in the hospitals, clinics and community programs in which we work.