Quality factors in interventional neuroradiology.

The interest we take in medical economics and strategy is like the one we take in politics: we may scorn politics, but it cannot be denied that it commands our entire life. For this reason, we must try to determine the conditions required to evaluate the quality of interventional neuroradiology, its operators, its practice, its advances, its teaching, and to maintain this quality. It is probably vital to the freedom of our future therapeutic decisions that we contribute effectively to this discussion before the standard is forced upon us by an exclusively economical or administrative logic. On the other hand, any advance can only be turned into progress if it is diffused and applied. There is no doubt that several levels of quality are acceptable, thus the best approach will be to look for and identify the minimum standard for quality or the limits of non-quality. We shall refrain from suggesting that the level of excellence at a given moment should be imposed upon all operators and constitute the standard level of practice. Practice is based on knowledge and competence. The most skilled surgical act cannot guarantee safe medical treatment if it is not supported by sufficient knowledge about the diseases and their symptoms. Mastership of the decision process requires a thorough vision of the therapeutic decision tree involved. Quality is a composition of global view and detailed analysis to allow a fuzzy gestion of the performance. Regardless of the plan chosen, openmindedness should be kept to allow adaptation, correction or interruption of a given therapeutic process in view of unpredicted pieces of information. Such input is a predictable possibility that should be explained to the patient prior to starting the procedure. Dealing with human beings, the attitude along with the technical management will be of paramount importance in the overall quality assessment.