MARQuIS

Methods of Assessing Response to Quality Improvement Strategies

www.marquis.be

HOPE was part of a consortium that obtained support within the EU Sixth Framework programme of research and technological development. This project was called Marquis (Methods of Assessing Response to Quality Improvement Strategies) and was within the priority “Providing Health, Security and Opportunity to the People of Europe”.

Marquis project had four main objectives:

1. To identify, compare and assess the formal adoption by EU member states and accession countries of different quality strategies at a national level (including accreditation, certification, peer review (visitatie), clinical guidelines, performance indicators, patient surveys etc);
2. To identify and synthesize the quality requirements for cross-border patients as expressed by European regulation, jurisprudence, guidance and research, and other sources as insurance contracts and patients' expressed needs;
3. To describe in a sample of states how hospitals have applied national quality strategies, met the defined requirements of cross-border patients and variables of organization and methodology associated with meeting them;
4. To use these data to draw conclusions about the association of various national quality strategies and compliance with defined requirements and the need for developing formal quality procedures at EU level.

This three-year project officially started on 28 January 2005.

In 2006, partners worked on the description in a sample of state hospitals to identify how they have applied national quality strategies. A questionnaire answered by 400 hospitals was analyzed. In first semester of 2007 HOPE was supervising the “audit” which enabled the visit of 100 hospitals.

On 7 December 2007, the final MARQuIS project conference took place in Venice (Palazzo Cavallo Franchetti). The results of this research project on quality were presented. The quality strategies, quality requirements for cross-border patients, questions on how hospitals have applied national quality strategies were the key topics of the conference.

Activities

Hospitals in the 27
EU Member States

Quality of care
MARQuIS
Patient safety

Human resources

Public health

Hospital, health care
and internal market

e-Health

Cross-border
co-operation

Green hospitals

Networking