[Rehabilitation guidelines as tool of quality assurance in rehabilitation]

The rehabilitation guideline program initiated by the German Federal Pension Insurance for Salaried Employees (BfA) can be regarded as the introduction of evidence- and consensus-based guidelines with direct relevance to rehabilitation practice in this specific sector of care. After successful implementation of the program, a substantial reduction of practice variation among rehabilitation institutions may be expected, hereby promoting the quality assurance in rehabilitation care. The program will also support the legitimization of medical rehabilitation as offered by the pension funds. So far, this is the first and only health care sector that has included the use of evidence-based practice guidelines routinely and ubiquitously into quality assurance activities.