Quality assurance in a neighborhood health center: dental services.

A method for assessing the quality of dental care in neighborhood health centers has been presented. The audit uses implicit review for the evaluation of the overall process of dental care and explicit review for the technical component of the clinical audit and the evaluation of the dental record. This combined approach is favored over a totally explicit audit because it is more flexible and efficient and less threatening to the dentist. Although the "soft" structure of this audit could be criticized, the major issue is that a useable, simple quality assurance mechanism has been successfully used to improved the quality of dental care. Modifications of criteria will certainly evolve as quality assurance mechanisms improve.