[Quality assurance exemplified by perinatology and surgery]

Quality assurance encompasses all activities which are necessary to obtain a demanded quality of medical care. Typically, a quality assurance process ("monitoring- and evaluation-process") includes the following steps: systematic observation of quality of medical care using quality indicators, assessment of quality by comparison with standards and recognizing problems, analysis of the most important problem, realization of appropriate problem solving strategies and evaluation, if the problem is successfully solved through the corrective action. The quality assurance programs in perinatology and surgery--established in all the states of the Federal Republic of Germany--support the hospitals in the application of this quality assurance process. Uniform documentation and preparation of quality relevant information (lists of complications, profiles, charts, etc.) help the hospitals to perform a self-evaluation, to recognize problems and to verify the elimination of the problems. Hence, comparisons with local results and with results of other hospitals are possible.