Quality of health care in Norway

         This chapter provides an overview of policies and strategies to assure and improve the quality of health care in Norway. After describing the organisation of the Norwegian health care system and the roles of the central government, the county and local level, the chapter focuses on the assurance of the quality of professionals, medical devices, pharmaceuticals and health care institutions. Policies to monitor and improve quality of care are then described, including the Norwegian patient safety agenda, the information infrastructure, and the use of national guidelines and health technology assessment. Specific attention is finally given to policies aimed at strengthening the role and perspective of the patient, as well as contracting and paying for quality.         This chapter concludes that Norway has an impressive number of quality initiatives, but challenges remain to complete a quality improvement culture with robust assurance mechanisms. Individual professional performance could be made mandatory for all medical doctors, accreditation programme might be set-up for health care facilities and patient safety could be strengthened to more primary care services. The implementation of incentive structures through quality contracting and targeted reimbursement would further enhance performance.      