[Expert commission for questions of physician malpractice. More than 10 years service for the patient and physician--report from the Südbaden District Chamber of Medicine]. / Gutachterkommission für Fragen ärztlicher Haftpflicht. Mehr als zehn Jahre im Dienst von Patient und Arzt--Bericht aus dem Bereich der Bezirksärztekammer Südbaden.

The provision of an objective expertise on medical practice by an expert commission and arbitration board aims to make it easier for the patient to prove a justified claim, and for the physician to reject unfounded accusations made against him. A retrospective consideration of the activities of the expert commission on questions of medical liability at the Medical Society of Baden-Württemberg for the region covered by the District Medical Society Südbaden shows that the expert commission is being approached progressively more often. The medical discipline most frequently involved is surgery. Although claims are more frequently made against hospital doctors than against doctors in private practice, the latter are more likely to be guilty of maltreatment. Iatrogenic mistakes made during routine treatments can lead to serious consequences for the patient. An analysis of the activities of the expert commissions can open up new possibilities for quality control in medical care and further medical education.

[Quality of Statutory Inpatient Database Before Introducing DRGs]. / Formale Qualität von Leistungsdaten auf rahmengesetzlicher Grundlage im Vorfeld der DRG - Einführung.

According to the legislation of the Federal Republic of Germany (Gesundheitsstrukturgesetz 1993) defined performance figures must be listed for each case of inpatient care. As hospital morbidity data are essential for further development of the health care system and for introducing the DRGs, the corresponding statistical data of a German federal territory of the year 2000 were studied in respect of several aspects of their quality: conformity with the requirements of law, plausibility and ability to transport essential medical information. Notable variations were found between the departments and different medical disciplines without interdependence to variant hospital status. Only about 40 % of departments of surgical disciplines transferred data according to legal requirements. Some disciplines showed higher percentages of unspecific coding (e.g. traumatology). The described deficits impair data reliability. The study offers a feedback to hospital departments with regard to their formal data quality. Periodic investigation may thus help to improve data quality in future.