[Quality assurance by routine data (QAR)--a new dimension in quality management of inpatient treatment?]

Patients, admitting doctors and payers want to have more and more valid information about the medical results in hospitals really are. The quality of medical care in hospitals is demonstrated in the quality reports through structure and process data, data of volume about the most common main diagnoses and procedures and, in the current version, also through data of external quality assurance. For patients and payers, this means that it may be difficult to obtain sufficient information on relevant quality criteria for different therapies in hospital departments. It may also mean that it is difficult to choose between hospitals. The project "Quality assurance of inpatient treatment by routine data" (QAR) is a new and extended attempt in quality management. By changing the reimbursement procedures of hospitals to DRG, one receives data from which one can easily deduce marks of quality. For special treatment the QAR marks of quality provide patients, insurance companies and the internal quality management of hospitals with information on the quality of the hospitals and their departments. In this paper, the opportunities and prospects of quality assurance by using routine date will be discussed.