Founded in 2008, the Quality Medicine Initiative (QMI) aims to promote quality improvement in medicine by means of innovative, efficient procedures and thus to set new standards. Now more than 250 hospitals in Germany and Switzerland are participating in the initiative and voluntarily exceeding the statutory requirements with regard to quality assurance. 

The IQM is based on three principles: measure quality on the basis of routine data, publish the results to promote transparency, and improve quality with a peer-review process. In Switzerland, quality measurement using routine data is based on the Swiss Inpatient Quality Indicators (CH-IQI). The current version of the CH-IQI includes 380 performance indicators for results, data sets and processes on more than 60 significant clinical pictures and treatments.