Quality improvement in health care should include patient evaluations. Patient evaluation is a relevant instrument for assessing those aspects of care which are significant for the patient's experience of quality and for assessing courses of treatment. The striving for 100% satisfaction should be balanced by the regard for quality viewed from a professional and an organizational perspective. Patient evaluations must be integrated in a learning process in order to produce quality improvement in the evaluated organization. Scientific development of instruments for evaluation by patients with specific diagnoses and evaluations of courses of treatment will contribute to future quality improvement of health care.