What is quality?
Hospitals distinguish between different types of quality:
- Structural quality: This includes, for example, the material equipment of a hospital, the technical devices, their regular maintenance and renewal, but also the qualification of the staff, the organization of their deployment – in fact everything that is necessary for operation.
- Outcome quality: What are the results in the end? Are you healed, is your pain relieved, is the wound closed, are you satisfied overall? If you were dissatisfied, was your complaint handled carefully? Was follow-up and transition to home and care seamless?
How do you measure the quality of a clinic?
For example, one quality indicator could be the percentage of patients who are able to walk on their own again after a short time following the successful insertion of an artificial hip joint (e.g., 80 percent).
What does the quality reports say?
A. Information that applies to the entire hospital: Presentation of the hospital with photo, naming of responsible persons, contact persons with telephone numbers, e-mail addresses speak for openness and transparency to the outside. Also mentioned are:
- the sponsorship (private, public, non-profit),
B. Information on the departments or organizational units, on the treatments performed and the diseases treated – in each case with information on how often, for example, a particular operation was performed in the year.
Listed are the most frequent diagnoses according to ICD, the most frequently performed operations, examinations, interventions according to the operation code (OPS), outpatient therapy options, equipment and personnel.
