Footnotes

• Dr Vahé A Kazandjian is the President of the Center for Performance Sciences, a global outcomes research organization, and Adjunct Professor, the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland. He is the original architect of and is responsible for the Maryland Quality Indicator Project® (QIP), the continuous performance improvement program used worldwide over the last 19 years by more than 1800 healthcare organizations. In the UK alone, over 125 hospitals from the NHS and the private sector have participated in the international component of the QIP since 1992. Dr Kazandjian is an advisor to the WHO, Europe Office, for the development of indicator projects in European countries.