[Quality assurance in medical care].

The demand for quality assurance in Germany's health care system has been on the increase since promulgation of the Germany Statutory Health Service Reform law. To control, to assure and to improve quality a vast array of different systems is used by health care providers. All these systems work in a similar manner. The desired level of quality is determined and compared with the actually achieved level. If a deviation of quality is observed, actions for quality improvement are instituted. However, there are some problems that make quality assurance a difficult problem. Since the level of quality is a result of a patient's individual evaluation it is very difficult to set a common level. Another problem is to find valid criteria to measure the degree of quality. Finally, further research is necessary to analyse benefits and costs of introducing a quality assurance system.