[Quality improvement in acute pain management in Germany]

In Germany, different quality management approaches in postoperative pain management have been established. In this context, quality is distinguished into structure quality (e.g. personnel and equipment resources), process quality (e. g. standardized treatment schemes) and outcome quality (e.g. pain intensity, side effects, satisfaction). While guidelines and recommendations help to set up evidence based structures and processes and offer support for decision making, benchmark projects offer insights in real life conditions. By use of feedback and benchmarking tools, they can be used for outcome-oriented quality improvement. Certification projects assess compliance with or achievement of defined quality criteria on the basis of predefined structure, process, and outcome parameter.