[Quality assurance under professional law and law relating to health services physicians and doctors].

Medical quality assurance is guaranteed by a partially supplementary and partially contradictory systemframework of professional provisions as well as the provisions that apply to health service physicians. As far as qualifications are concerned, quality assurance is primarily the responsibility of the medical boards. Competing provisions are to be found particularly in the area of process quality. With a view to co-ordinating them, the Work Group for the Promotion of Quality Assurance in Medicine has been set up, sponsored by the Federal Medical Board, the Federal Association of National Health Service Physicians, the German Hospital Organisation and the leading statutory health insurance associations. The role of the Federal Medical Board in the field of quality assurance has been considerably upgraded pursuant to the Second Reform Index [II. NOG]. The article refers to several quality assurance projects, exploring in depth, for example, quality assurance in the areas of blood group identification and blood transfusion.