ABSTRACT
Despite a qualitatively and structurally good care of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Germany, there are still potentially amendable deficits in the quality of care. For this reason, the German Society for Rheumatology (DGRh) has therefore decided to ask a group of experts including various stakeholders to develop quality standards (QS) for the care of patients with RA in order to improve the quality of care. The QS are used to determine and quantitatively measure the quality of care, subject to relevance and feasibility. The recently published NICE and ASAS standards and a systematic literature search were used as the basis for development. A total of 8 QS, now published for the first time, were approved with the intention to measure and further optimize the quality of care for patients with RA in Germany.
Subject(s)
Arthritis, Rheumatoid , Rheumatology , Humans , Arthritis, Rheumatoid/diagnosis , Arthritis, Rheumatoid/therapy , GermanyABSTRACT
The article gives an overview of how health services research helps to plan and optimize patient-centered health services. The decision-making processes on the micro-level (individual treatment decisions) and the macro-level (decisions about structuring of the healthcare system) are examined. Examples from the field of rheumatology illustrate how results of health services research can help to improve decisions about treatment by providing relevant information about quality of health services which helps in the joint decision-making process. Furthermore, it becomes clear that political decisions to improve health care service structures can be better achieved if scientific proof of deficits in existing health service structures can be provided. The article also shows how health services research helps to describe and redefine the roles of patients and patient-doctor communication. Additionally, the active role of patients in (health services) research is addressed.
