Providing quality health care that will result in better health for individuals and groups of the population is the subject of interest of several international health organizations that in the last thirty years have influenced the development of health care quality management strategies at national and international levels. Regulations on quality management and monitoring based on indicators of treatment and care success have also been adopted in the Croatian health care system. The aim of this thesis is to describe the development of a health care quality monitoring system in Croatia with special reference to the health care indicators that we use to assess the safety of patients in the hospital ward. Standard indicators of hospital ward care such as pressure ulcers, patient falls, nosocomial infections, patient satisfaction, and nursing record keeping can help us identify differences between individual wards and institutions. Without collecting and analyzing data on adverse events, it is objectively difficult to determine which problems in quality assurance of health care are most significant in individual departments, conduct training based on learning from failures and apply specific methods to maintain and achieve professional standards according to the needs of the health institution.