Survey of São Paulo State hospitals during the second semester 1999, looking for quality initiatives. Hospitals were divided into 4 cathegories: public, philantropic, non philantropic and university. From the 97 hospitals sample, 23% answered they had quality initiatives. Those that did not have the initiatives blamed high costs and delayed results for that. Those that had the initiatives did not know much about their costs. Almost all of those that answered positively siad they monitored managerial indicators.