title: [Quality assurance in rheumatology].
abstract: Coming from a collection of letters for quality assurance in rheumatology, a provisional program by the Commission for Quality Assurance of the German Society for Rheumatology is introduced. The completion and supplementation of the manual has been started already. The necessary continuation of this process shall be undertaken via internet. Contacts with other medical societies are planned to improve the consensus of the guidelines and to work on comprehensive topics of global interest. General practitioners and self-help groups for patients should be consulted to optimize this project. Specific controversially discussed procedures for diagnosis and therapy have to be clarified by prospective studies. Finally, the result of this project has to be reviewed by using the criteria for the assessment of guidelines developed by the Society of Physicians of Germany resulting in evidence based guidelines. The most important aspects of a comprehensive quality management in practices for rheumatology, rheuma- and rehabilitation hospitals are pointed out.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Keitel
mesh_terms: D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D009460:Neurologic Examination; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D012219:Rheumatology / Q000592:standards*