The terms “quality assurance” and “quality control” are often used interchangeably to refer to ways of ensuring the quality of a service or product. The terms, however, have different meanings.
- Assurance: The act of giving confidence, the state of being certain or the act of making certain.
- Quality Assurance: The planned and systematic activities implemented in a quality system so that quality requirements for a product or service will be fulfilled.
- Control: An evaluation to indicate needed corrective responses; the act of guiding a process in which variability is attributable to a constant system of chance causes.
- Quality Control: The observation techniques and activities used to fulfill requirements for quality.
- Quality incentive payment (QIP): The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administer the End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Quality Incentive Program (QIP) to promote high-quality services in outpatient dialysis facilities treating patients with ESRD. The first of its kind in Medicare, this program changes the way CMS pays for the treatment of patients with ESRD by linking a portion of payment directly to facilities’ performance on quality of care measures. These types of programs are known as “pay-for-performance” or “value-based purchasing” (VBP) programs.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. (2016). ESRD Quality Incentive Program. Retrieved from: http://www.cms.gov/medicare/quality-initiatives-patient-assessment-instruments/esrdqip/index.html