Medical quality management is a term that has yet to find its way into any leading compendium of health care definitions. Nevertheless, it represents an area in which almost all physicians in active clinical practice are engaged on a daily basis as well as the primary field of professional action for an estimated 16,000 physicians in the United States and an unknown but growing number internationally. Medical quality management (MQM) is elemental to clinical services and has been recognized as an area of medical specialization by the American Medical Association for 20 years, but public recognition of the field needs a strong boost
