Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe how clinical registers were designed and used to serve multiple purposes in three health systems, in order to contribute practical experience for building learning healthcare systems. Design/methodology/approach Case description and comparison of...

Health systems in lower income countries are often not able to provide for the basichealth needs of their populations. The progress of recent initiatives such as the WHO millennium development goals and new funds for disease programs is slowed by the limitations of these health service and...

Background: Service accreditation is a structured process of recognising and promoting performance and adherence to standards. Typically, accreditation agencies either receive standards from an authorized body or develop new and upgrade existing standards through research and expert views. They...

Social sciences have given much to the science and practice of patient safety, but have more to offer. The purposes of this paper are to give a background to the studies presented in this special issue, and to encourage more social scientist to contribute to this important and rapidly growing...