[Current state, challenges and prospects for the development of the Russian urological service].

The present study was dedicated to the analysis of the incidence, prevalence and mortality from diseases of the urogenital system. The data on the effectiveness of the hospital bed usage, the patient profile at hospital, the treatment timing and outcomes, surgical activities in urological hospitals, the state of staff assistance in urological service, the efficacy of usage of working time of urologist and human resource of Russian urological service were analyzed. Data analysis revealed a number of issues of administrative and legal nature, which cause modest efficiency of activity of urological service. The ways for solutions of these problems are presented.

[Structured quality report of urologic clinics according to section 137 SGB V. Useful information for the patient, marketing tool of the hospitals, leverage wielded by the health insurance companies, or junk data?]. / Strukturierte Qualitätsberichte urologischer Hauptabteilungen gemäss 137 SGB V. Entscheidungshilfe für den Patienten, Marketing-Instrument der Kliniken, Druckmittel der Krankenkassen oder Datenmüll?

In 2005, German hospitals were legally obliged to publish a structured quality report on their data of 2004 including the top 10 diagnosis-related groups, top 10 diagnoses, and top 10 procedures for every specialty. The aim was to increase the transparency for patients, doctors, and health insurance companies. Comparing the quality reports of 248 departments of urology revealed very uniform distributions of diagnoses and diagnosis-related groups. There was a large variety of top 10 procedures, resulting from different interpretations of the coding system, leading to diminished accuracy. The quality reports provide coding specialists with important data, but for patients and nonspecialized doctors, this system is not helpful in improving transparency.