[On the importance of health services research: an overview].

In Germany, health services research has become an important area of research. Health services research is a multidisciplinary field of scientific investigation that studies central problems of health care to increase knowledge and understanding and provide solutions for those problems. The paper aims to demonstrate the value of health services research for health care practitioners by defining its central tasks, by describing the development of this research field in Germany and by deriving future challenges for health services researchers.