[Rehabilitation management categories. A new approach to case mix in medical rehabilitation].

Creating typical treatment case groups in medical rehabilitation, in short: Rehabilitee Management Categories (RMKs, Rehabilitanden-Management-Kategorien), is a key issue for quality assurance within the frame of modern concepts of Total Quality Management (TQM), not least utilizing current organization and management concepts (Managed Care). So far, the problem of creating highly homogeneous case groups has remained unsolved on the basis of the present methodological framework. Critical prerequisites for any further scientific work on this problem are being established in the field of medical rehabilitation with the help of the Classification of Therapeutic Services (CTS) as well as development of instruments documenting therapy plans for typical rehabilitation case groups, process-relevant quality features and definitions of therapy goals as a basis for quality screening under the Pension Insurance quality assurance programme in medical rehabilitation. These developments have clearly contributed to expanding the theoretical foundations as well as the prerequisites for empirical grounding of Rehabilitee Management Categories in medical rehabilitation under the Pension Insurance scheme. A project for determination of rehabilitation case groups which is based on these developments, is due to start at the Humboldt University and Technical University, Berlin in the near future within a rehab promotion initiative of the German Pension Insurance system in cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology. Conceptually, the determination of Rehabilitee Management Categories by far exceeds all previous approaches as (1) it will be generated by an iterative process of empirical service descriptions and theoretical consensus building among experts, (2) not only static parameters but also process-related details will be recorded, and (3) quality requirements will be defined for the rehabilitation process and outcome. As a result, rehabilitation-relevant case groups are to be created, which will include a definition of process- and outcome-oriented quality standards. Unlike previous case group concepts, the new approach encompasses quality management issues as an integral part of its development. Since this concept for determination of Rehabilitee Management Categories incorporates the definition of quality standards, i.e., guidelines, prerequisites will be created for integrating these standards into quality management concepts, as well as service management across the interfaces of the German service delivery system (Managed Care).