[Quality assurance in therapy of mucoviscidosis: value of the Bonn patient information system]

Abstract

Background: Differences in the survival rates of patients in two large CF-clinics (Toronto, Boston) were explained by differences in dietary regimens: Toronto favoured a fat-enriched diet and had the better outcome. This example may explain how important high quality medical data are for improving treatment and prognosis of CF.

Aim: A local patient-information-system is described to improve internal and external quality control.

Results: The system was developed over years in a fruitful collaboration between a realistic statistician and active CF doctors. It is easy to use and facilitates documentation, follow-up, researches and preparation of data for scientific presentation and clinical routine. Graphical outline may be used to motivate individual patients. Internal controlling for plausibility improves quality of data also serving the national system for quality control.

Conclusions: We believe, our system is able to improve internal quality control and to serve the national system for quality control very efficiently without additional workload of the local CF-clinic.