Quality in sports orthopedics and traumatology: more than just return to play

Abstract

Quality assessment is gaining in importance in sports orthopedics and traumatology. Structural, process and results quality are differentiated as central quality dimensions in healthcare. Structural quality is understood to mean the capabilities of the institution involved in patient care with its human and material resources. Structural quality can be documented using institutional certificates (e.g. knee center of the German Knee Society, DKG) or personal certificates (e.g. DKG knee surgeon). Process quality evaluates all medical, nursing and administrative activities that are involved in the care process. The outcome quality describes changes in the patient's state of health that can be attributed to medical, nursing and physiotherapeutic measures. The measurement of the outcome quality can be broken down into objective and subjective parameters. In terms of subjective parameters patient reported outcome measures (PROM) play amajor role. Another quality initiative in recent years can be seen in healthcare research. In this context medical registers play a role in which long-term healthcare data are prospectively collated and involves data on the quality of the process and outcome. The outcome quality is also the focus of value-based reimbursement systems.