[Patient-oriented, treatment-accompanying documentation as a basis for evaluation with medical oncology as an...

The documentation of patient characteristics, procedures of care and follow-up of the disease plays an important role in monitoring quality of care and support of clinical research. In order to evaluate the use of Clinical Practice Guidelines and their positive implications towards quality of care (especially patient's outcome), some closer reflections are needed to meet the special requirements. Our intention is to optimise content and extent of the collected information to characterise the different dimensions of the quality of medical care best possible. During the past two decades a comprehensive infrastructure concerning tumour documentation has evolved in Germany. To ensure the possibility to compare and evaluate diagnostic and therapeutic approaches in different medical institutions or health care systems, the systematic, patient-oriented treatment accompanying tumour documentation is a compelling requirement. It is a difficult task to describe pattern of care and measure both performance and outcome objectively. The paradigm of a patient-oriented treatment accompanying documentation includes the collection of clinical relevant process and outcome data in order to reflect the intention and way of thinking of the treating physicians and to get an impression of the "real world effectiveness" of the applied interventions.