309 J Contemp Med Sci | Vol. 5, No. 6, November–December 2019: 309–312 Original ISSN 2413-0516 Introduction Te delivery of quality dental care is a key to the long-term success in oral health promotion. Improving the quality of health care services has been a key priority for successful gov- ernments. 1 Clinical governance has so far become an import- ant aspect of quality assurance (QA) and it was frst introduced in 1997 with the publication of the “New Labors frst White paper on health” as a labor’s new approach in Public Health in the 21st century. Te concerns were quality care being deliv- ered to the right patient at right time in a right manner. 2 In relation to QA, there are several models available in public health. All models including: International Standardization Organization (9000, 9001-9004), Dental Excellence quality model of European Federation for Quality Management, total quality management, European Practice Assessment model, as well as the clinical governance 3 are aiming at improving the quality of health care services. Clinical governance would build on (not replace) the existing patterns of QA. 2 By def- nition, clinical governance is “a framework through which dental practitioners are held responsible to improve quality of their services and establish high standards of care by cre- ating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will fourished.” Tis defnition has been produced and applied by NHS clinical governance body, published by the Department of Health in 1997, for general dental practitioners. 4 Te clinical governance approach in UK was originally based on seven pillars (N.H.S approach) including: (1) Clinical efectiveness, (2) clinical audit, (3) risk management (RM), (4) patient safety, (5) patient and public involvement, (6) use of information, and (7) education and training. 5 Te clinical gov- ernance therefore, covers all activities that help maintaining and promoting patient care standards, and never negates other quality management systems. 6 Background Compliant dental schools can train fully compliant graduates who can use principals and procedures of clinical governance in their daily clinical practice. Te University of Texas Health Science Center, Dental Branch at Houston began credential- ing clinical faculty in 1997 as part of its QA and RM pro- gram. Credentialing is the process of obtaining, verifying, and assessing the qualifcations of a health care practitioner who provides patient services in a health care organization. 7 Hugh Bennet et al, developed a framework for evaluating clinical governance in dental feld. Tis framework included clean- liness and infection control, safety and safeguarding, infor- mation and involvement, training and development, quality and improvements, and RM as main domains by focusing on reducing inequities in oral health. 6 Holden and Moore devel- oped a 14 component model to defne structure and process control in order to assure the expected outcome in overall clin- ical performance. Tey believe it is a robust, fexible, efective, and systematic way of improvements in QA. 8 Te “Medical Practitioners and Dentists board” in Kenya developed a national training and QA standards for dental schools and teaching hospitals including: governance and management, academic program, physical infrastructure, human resources, student afairs, program monitoring, and evaluation, as well Developing an innovative clinical governance assessment framework for dental schools in Iran Dehghanian D, a Heydarpoor P, b Namdari M, a Khoshnevisan MH c a Community Oral Health Department, School of Dentistry, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. b School of Management and Medical Education Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. c Preventive Dentistry Research Center, Research Institute of Dental Sciences, School of Dentistry, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Correspondence to Khoshnevisan MH (mh.khoshnevisan@sbmu.ac.ir ) (Submitted: 07 July 2019 – Revised version received: 18 August 2019 – Accepted: 26 August 2019 – Published online: 26 December 2019) Objectives The aim of this study was to develop and validate a dental clinical governance (DCG) assessment framework for use in local dental schools in Iran. Methods A mixed method (qualitative and quantitative) was used in the present investigation. The study was performed in three steps, including: (a) thorough literature review, (b) focused group discussion, and (c) application of validated instrument. The content validity index (CVI) and content validity ratio (CVR) were calculated for each question. The Cronbach’s alpha coefcient was calculated to evaluate the internal consistency and reliability for this questionnaire. The Smart PLS software was used for calculation of goodness-of-ft (GOF) for confrmatory factorial analysis to determine construct validity of this questionnaire. Results Initially, 140 items covering 7 DCG domains were identifed after comprehensive literature review. Ten specialists participated in the expert panel, rating independently on the necessity, relevancy, simplicity, and clarity of each question. Expert’s ratings were used to calculate the validity for each question. The questions with CVI lower than 0.79 and the CVR less than 0.62 were excluded. Reliability analysis was conducted by calculating intraclass coefcient and Cronbach’s alpha coefcient which were 0.88 and 0.92, respectively. This shows good reliability and internal consistency of the questionnaire. Construct validity determined by computing GOF index. The result was 0.622, which indicates a good level of construct validity. After validation process, 124 out of 140 questions left to cover the 7 domains of DCG in our newly developed and validated framework. Conclusions The newly developed and standardized DCG framework can be used for assessment of compliance level among Iranian dental schools at the national level. Key words dental clinical governance, dental schools, validation, questionnaire, framework