I should congratulate the Austrian Presidency for its ambitious agenda on health related issues. You have held an important conference on quality management regarding blood last week. And now, this important event, on quality assurance in the health sector. I am encouraged to see how discussions on these important topics broaden the health policy agenda at Community level. This is important if we are serious in making our policy more relevant to the needs of the Member States and of their citizens.
Quality is of course a priority in all fields.
And there are few, if any, areas where quality is more important than in the area of health. Our citizens will not accept that their health may be threatened by an inadequate attention to quality considerations. We must be ambitious, therefore, in seeing that their concerns are heard. Our approach towards quality has expanded from a relatively narrow focus to a broad approach that aims at identifying, establishing and assuring performance as per specifications and expectations all along the life of a product, a service or a system. The most important development in this area is, in my view, the way we have come to look at quality not only in terms of inputs, but in terms of results and concrete outcomes, and potential benefits to the citizen.