Quality guru Avedis Donabedian recently presently presented the university of Oxford’s Litchfield Lecture on 'Quality in Health Care: the Consumer’s Role'. Pat Duff reports on his philosophy of health care

Avedis Donabedian, Michegan Emeritus Professor of Public Health has been at the international forefront in defining quality in health care for many years. He is most famous for his triad-structure, process and outcome-as an approach to assessing the quality of care. His work reflects a lifetime of endeavour that we could not hope to absorb in the short period we had with him.