[Evaluation of Federal Health Insurance process data as instrument for structural and quality analysis of inpatient care].

Statistically based quality assurance, despite its advantages also has a few marked disadvantages. In particular, it is not proven that it promotes measures of internal quality assurance. Instead, processing data of the statutory health insurance bodies are shown as flexible and easily available data covering a defined population and region. Hence, these processing data may be the starting point for internal quality management in hospitals. As examples, from an analysis of hospitalised cases some questions were derived concerning the structure and quality of hospital care. These questions should be answered by common efforts of hospitals, health insurance bodies, and public institutions. This may guarantee good and efficient inpatient care.