From the Foreword by John W. Williamson, MD
World leader in health care quality improvement
Director, Salt Lake Regional Medical Education Center
US Veterans Health Administration
Professor of Medicine and of Medical Informatics
University of Utah, School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, Utah:

• This book will be of universal value.
• It provides readers with both ideas and resources to develop a solid foundation for designing, implementing, and evaluating QM (quality management) programs.
• This publication provides a comprehensive overview of the field of QM. It is truly an encyclopedia of recent QA/QI (quality assurance/quality improvement) technology, encompassing most, if not all, current QI theory, principles, and methods.
• It is also an invaluable means for identifying other QA/QI resources. For example, it provides a useful means for keeping up with the rapidly expanding QI field.
• It stresses what, in the future, will likely be among the most important resources for QA/QI, namely medical informatics and computerized 'decision support technology.'
• The authors are to be congratulated for their enormous effort to produce a book that will make such an important contribution to the field of health care and that of quality improvement.