THE DEVELOPMENT OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS AT THE PRIMARY LEVEL OF HEALTHCARE

The increased level of knowledge in medicine, as in other sciences that are in some way associated with medical science, contributed to the change in quality standards in the health systems. Health systems, medical personnel and other employees in the health systems, especially during the last ten years have been faced with the demands of society and individuals (healthcare users), for an increased quality and elimination of the risk of adverse outcomes of individual procedures, diagnosis and treatment. Although quality in a medical intervention means applying the principles of best professional practice, more and more adverse outcomes of treatment have been recorded in the most technologically advanced countries. Conceptual models in healthcare began to develop in the early 1960s, with the works of Donabedian in the field of assessing the quality of healthcare, which in this model included elements of structure, process and outcomes (Donabedian, 2005). Following this model, there have been many efforts to analyze the individual components of healthcare. The US Institute of Medicine developed and defined healthcare as a framework to be used as a template for planning the reform of primary healthcare and as a basis for the development of instruments that are used in assessing the quality of healthcare. One of the basic human rights is the right to quality healthcare. The goal of each health system is to improve the quality of health, which also improves the quality of life. The quality of healthcare encompasses a set of measures taken during a health procedure, which results in a favourable outcome of treatment and also prevents unwanted events that may cause a negative treatment outcome. At the heart of the quality system is the patient, and therefore health institutions must provide conditions that guarantee their health and security. The aim of this paper is to present health systems that apply management models for the overall quality of the mechanisms built in the structure of governance at all levels to enable prediction of the results of the introduction of new policies aimed at maintaining and improving the quality of the healthcare system.