[26th Conference of the Spanish Society of Quality in Healthcare: a good balance between quality, innovation, science and participation].

The experience and learning process of preparing a scientific conference programme, organising and conducting a conference ccompletes the quality circle with the quantitative and qualitative assessment of the process and results. The transmission of this experience and learning process through this paper will improve the performance of committees of future conference venues, partners and participants and collaborators. The method for performing this evaluation is the assessment of the activities of both the scientific and organising committees of the XXVI Conference of the Spanish Society of Quality Healthcare in October 2008 in Zaragoza. The methodology evaluated the observance of the timetable and tasks assigned to the committees in the Congress Manual of the society along with the presentation of final results of the congress concerning scientific participation and overall satisfaction. There were a total of 1211 communications with a rejection rate of 9.1%. Of the total, 577 communications were presented in oral format and 544 in poster format. Aragon was the community of origin of 24% of communications. By subject areas, those of most interest were patient safety, organisational and management processes, and patient perspectives. A total of 83 participants attended 7 of the 11 workshops offered. The average attendance for each workshop was 12 people. The response rate to the assessment of workshops questionnaire was 54.2% with an average score of 4 (scale of 1 to 5). A total of 1131 people attended the conference of which 17% (193) were SECA associates. Out of a total of 1075 overall satisfaction conference questionnaires distributed there was a response rate of 9.30% (100). The scientific content was assessed with an average score of 3.6 and the organization with 3.87, both on a total score of 5 points. According to the number of abstracts received, number of conferences, level of satisfaction with the scientific program and organisation, we can conclude that the XXVI Conference of the Society has been a success, although we are still in our continuous quality improvement circle that will make conferences even better.