What principle is used in healthcare when services and results are compared with accepted standards?

The principle of quality assurance is critical in healthcare as it involves systematically monitoring services and outcomes against established standards. This ensures that healthcare providers can assess the effectiveness and safety of their practices, leading to improved patient care. Quality assurance encompasses the processes and policies designed to guarantee that certain quality standards are met consistently.

By utilizing quality assurance, healthcare organizations can identify areas needing enhancement, develop strategies for improvement, and implement changes to achieve better healthcare outcomes. The emphasis on comparing services and results to accepted benchmarks fosters accountability and encourages continuous improvement in healthcare settings.

In contrast, risk management primarily focuses on identifying and mitigating potential risks that could lead to adverse events. Performance evaluation looks at the effectiveness of individual employees or teams rather than the quality of the overall healthcare service. Continuous improvement, while an important aspect of quality assurance, is more about the ongoing effort to enhance services rather than the foundational principle of comparing current practices with known standards.