Quality assurance refers to a broad spectrum of activities aimed at ensuring compliance with minimum quality standards. Quality assurance activities include the retrospective process of measuring compliance with standards (e.g., HHS guidelines, professional guidelines, service standards). Site visits and chart reviews are examples of commonly used quality assurance activities. Quality assurance is not the same as quality improvement, although the results of quality assurance activities can be used to develop quality improvement activities.
Quality assurance is part of the larger grant administration function of a recipient’s program or organization and informs the clinical quality management program, but quality assurance activities by themselves do not constitute a CQM program. Data collected as part of quality assurance processes should feed back into the CQM program to ensure improvement in patient care, health outcomes, and patient satisfaction.