[Internal quality assurance--Munster experiences].

Medical data monitoring is an effective tool to insure high quality and efficient performance of health care providers. In the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery of the University of Muenster this is based on a comprehensive data management system. This system has been custom tailored to enable optimal monitoring of quality, performance and cost aspects based on access to all available data. Data acquisition is achieved online and allows for continuous data analysis. This data monitoring is the basis for objective quality control of medical performance as well as for the evaluation of the impact of politically induced economic restrictions on the quality of care.