title: Tearing down walls: opening the border between hospital and ambulatory care for quality improvement in Germany.
abstract: The hospital benchmarking system in Germany was originally introduced to detect unintended consequences of reimbursement based on diagnosis-related groups. The new nationwide SQG programme aims to provide information on quality and outcomes of health care provided in hospital, ambulatory specialist and primary care settings, including the healthcare delivery across different sectors. In 2010 the topics for indicator development were cataract surgery, cervical conization, colectoral cancer and percutaneous coronary interventions or coronary angiography. A systematic stepwise modified RAND/UCLA procedure is applied to develop quality indicators in each of these domains. A general framework for data collection is implemented. Benchmarking results are fed back to providers on a regular basis.
authors.affiliation: AQUA-Institute for Applied Quality Improvement and Research in Healthcare, Goettingen, Germany. joachim.szecsenyi@aqua-institut.de
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Szecsenyi
authors.forename: Bjoern
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Broge
authors.forename: Joerg
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Eckhardt
authors.forename: Guenther
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Heller
authors.forename: Petra
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kaufmann-Kolle
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wensing
mesh_terms: D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000592:standards*; D005858:Germany; D006291:Health Policy; D006761:Hospitals / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care