[Quality and innovation management in surgery for the patient's benefit]

While the objective of management of innovations is to move the achievable quality in the direction of maximum quality, the purpose of quality management is to achieve the achievable quality everywhere. Other than in pharmaceutical and medicinal products and in out-patient care, there is no systematic technology assessment for hospital care in Germany. Before broadly implementing innovations in health care, they have to be embedded in good clinical practice guidelines to assure their appropriate indication and performance. Since health insurance funds are the greatest profiteers, they should fill the financial gap for the research of transferring innovations into daily medical practice.