Once defined as “the degree of conformity to pre-established standards”...the standards by which care was judged were implicit and existed exclusively in the minds of the evaluators (Sultz & Young, 2014). Quality of care is a measurable, albeit challenging, aspect of healthcare, as it can classify and enumerate poor-quality and high-quality care. The measures are used to analyze how healthcare institutions perform in terms of quality and finance; the organization has a basis for understanding care delivery and improving it (Dlugacz, 2006). The various departments and ranges of data needed to measure quality all differ in hospital settings, but the availability of medical records and other clinical information makes it easier to evaluate the quality of care. This paper will analyze the components of health care quality, identify agencies that focus on quality, explore the HCAHPS survey, and the roles of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services in evaluating quality of care in hospitals. Hospitals are the main stakeholders in the healthcare sector. . There are various types of hospitals, such as general, specialty, teaching, for-profit or non-profit, rural and independent. All fundamental elements for the healthcare system. The fundamental components for measuring the quality of hospital care are structure, process, outcomes and research. Health care delivery was quantified with the model, structure + process = outcome (Quality). The structural component was the most used tool to measure the quality of healthcare until the 1960s. Hospitals relied on credentialing mechanisms to demonstrate quality of care, which is a component of structure. “The assumption behind structural quality reviews was that the better the facilities and qualifications of the practitioner...... middle of paper...... Medicine, 357:1350-1351. doi: 10.1056/NEJMc072002Kass-Bartelmes BL, Rutherford MK (2002). AHRQ tools and resources for better healthcare. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Research in Action, Issue 10. AHRQ Pub No. 03-0008.Lind, A. (2013). Arriving at consensus: Development and approach to measuring the quality of integrated care programs. Journal of the American Society on Aging, 37 (2), 54-61.O'Kane, M. E. and Paul D. Cleary. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.esourceresearch.orgSultz, H. A., & Young, K. M. (2014). US health care: understanding its organization and delivery. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Quality of care and the outcomes management movement. (n.d.). www.acep.org. Retrieved April 15, 2014, from https://www.acep.org/Clinical---Practice-Management/Quality-of-Care-and-the-Outcomes-Management-Movement/