[Quality assessment of medical care--a standardized scheme for the development of quality indicators]

A reliable and valid assessment of the quality of medical interventions is an indispensable prerequisite for any initiatives targeting at quality improvement in the health system. Quality indicators are well suited tools for such tasks, e.g. in the setting of a continuous monitoring. In the German health system, previous experiences concerning the use of quality indicators are limited. Available knowledge from medical services of other nations is mainly focused on the hospital sector. Therefore, it appears to be desirable to be able to provide a highly universal and standardized way for the definition of indicators of quality, enabling measurements of performance in any kind of health sector or disease treatment. Based on the demand for continuous quality monitoring in the sector of outpatient care recognized by the Central Institute of Panel Physicians, an indicator development scheme is demonstrated.