Data management and therapeutic standards in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine - Tools for quality management and cost containment

Patient data management in anaesthesia and intensive care should include besides medical data of individual patients economically important parameters, e. g. working time or cost of material. Integration of this data management system in the hospital information network enables case-oriented analyses for costs in relation to outcome. Standards of therapy including cost-benefit estimates may be an approach to improve the quality of care and to control the cost of medical care, in particular in the setting of teaching hospitals, avoiding erratic and costly orders by staff in training.