Quality indicators in radiotherapy

Providers and payers alike are increasingly committing themselves to ensuring the quality of healthcare services. Moreover, international organizations condition the awarding of accreditations with the implementation of a quality control programme. Quality indicators are tools used to analyze weaknesses in the provision of healthcare services. They are used to analyze the structure, process and outcomes of healthcare systems; they also aid in the planning and implementation of improvements in healthcare services. There is a tradition of quality management in the field of radiotherapy which is evolving along with technical and methodological changes in the field. Analyzing treatment outcomes, the most important quality indicator of oncological patient care, is often complicated by the unreliability or inaccessibility of patient data; this reduces the timeliness and credibility of the results. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of quality indicators in radiation oncology.