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We know that good quality care is people centred, responds to users’ expectations, and fulfils their right to health. Community engagement mechanisms create the basis for cultivating trust and collaboration between providers and the communities they serve. In the past decade we have witnessed a surge in mechanisms for community and user engagement. These mechanisms, often driven by the health system, aim to ensure users’ participation and demonstrate accountability of health services. Examples include the community scorecards in Ethiopia and Ghana, which are co-developed and jointly implemented with communities.8 9 However, the rapid shift in communication and information sharing brought by technology and social media is profoundly altering users’ expectations for quality and use of services. The future of quality will be defined by people’s voices shared through platforms that are not led or managed by health providers. The ability of health systems and providers to deliver quality care will be defined by their ability to listen to people’s expectations and needs, along with the ability to demonstrate accountability, share the right information, and correct any misconceptions that undermine public trust.

r managed by health providers. The ability of health systems and providers to deliver quality care will be defined by their ability to listen to people’s expectations and needs, along with the ability to demonstrate accountability, share the right information, and correct any misconceptions that undermine public trust. Learning and innovation tailored to the specific countries’ needs and context stimulate and support continuous improvement across the entire healthcare system. Digital solutions such as those related to commodities supply management or patient counselling and tracking, can help tackle persistent challenges of quality and access to services.10 Proactive research and development will help countries to identify the most effective innovations for delivering quality care in their own contexts. Quality healthcare is not a “nice to have” or a one-off project with a start and end date but must be consistently delivered to everyone, everywhere, starting from primary health services to the highest levels of care.11 To be most effective, current and future investments in health have to be informed by quality gaps, address quality needs, and contribute towards developing an enabling environment for quality.