Quality management is the aspect of management concerned with quality policy and an organization's production function from this perspective, including, for example, mechanisms for

• Producing products to specifications
• Designing products that customers desire
• Producing the technologies that expand what can be produced (product technology) and how well it can be produced (process technology)
• Improving quality management.
  

Quality management includes

• Quality assessment
• Quality assurance
• Continuous quality improvement
• Utilization review/management
• Risk management
• Process reengineering (including clinical pathways, etc).
  

Quality encompasses:

• Provider performance (technical quality of care)
• Cost of care (resource management)
• Patient (enrollee, consumer) satisfaction
• Value trade-offs, when it is not possible to maximize simultaneously all of the above three dimensions of quality.

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