Health Care and Guidelines: department tasks

The department deals with issues relating to health care standards and the needs-based management of the health care system. For selected medical interventions, it examines the relationship between the volume of services and the quality of treatment outcomes. It also supports the development of clinical practice guidelines. The department is also responsible for the “ThemenCheck Medizin“ process.

Staff members produce

Evidence reports

Evidence reports support guideline development groups in the development or updating of guidelines. These cover one or more research questions, e.g. on drug or non-drug interventions. The evidence reports serve as the evidence base for the development of recommendations by the guideline development groups.

Guideline synopses for disease management programmes (DMPs)

Guideline synopses describe important key points of a professionally recommended health care standard and form the basis for the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) to determine the requirements for DMPs for chronically ill patients. Current and DMP-relevant recommendations from national and international evidence-based guidelines are summarized in guideline synopses and the results are compared with the respective currently valid DMP.

Decision-making criteria for minimum volumes

For quality assurance reasons, minimum volume regulations have been established for particularly difficult, elective inpatient interventions. Decision-making criteria are developed for this purpose. To this end, it is examined whether a relationship can be demonstrated between the volume of services and the quality of treatment outcomes for medical interventions for which a minimum volume is to be introduced or adjusted.

“ThemenCheck” reports

Members of the general public can suggest topics for the assessment of non-drug diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. These suggestions are collected and prepared for a multi-stage selection process. In this moderated process, topics are nominated for which external research teams, in collaboration with IQWiG, prepare so-called ThemenCheck reports. The reports always assess both the benefits and harms of a medical intervention.

Other tasks include

• further development of the relevant methods applied in the various commissions, and
• dissemination of the assessment methods and results, as well as other new scientific knowledge arising from the department's work, through presentations and publications.