Guidelines and Quality Indicators
Foundation of every tumour-specific Catalogue of Requirements are the clinical practice guidelines (CPG) developed by the German Guideline Programme in Oncology (GGPO). The quality indicators (QI) derived from strong recommendations of the GPPO CPGs are implemented, documented and analysed in the ECC certified cancer centres and thus report about the adherence of guideline recommendations in the clinical routine.
The German Guideline Programme in Oncology
The Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany, the German Cancer Society and the German Cancer Aid jointly launched the German Guideline Program in Oncology (GGPO) in 2008. The program aims to foster the development, implementation and evaluation of evidence based clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) in oncology.
The guidelines are regularly updated and available in German and English. Link to the guidelines.
Quality Indicators in the ECC
An obligatory part of every GPPO CPG development process is the definition of QIs based on strong recommendations. These recommendations are considered suitable as a quality standard since it can be assumed that their addressed actions will be beneficial for most patients. In a well-defined multi-step process, interdisciplinary experts of the guideline group derive the quality indicators. The methodology for development of guideline-based QIs can be found here.
GGPO, Quality Indicators and ECC certification programme
The QIs derived from the CPGs are implemented in the ECC certified cancer centres. Each data sheets depict the tumour specific QIs. All indicators in the data sheet have to be reported annually by each certified centre.
The implementation rate of these QIs, and thus the adherence to guideline recommendations, is monitored and evaluated through the ECC certification system.
Moreover, the results of the QIs are regularly fed back to the GGPO guideline groups to ensure the best possible exchange between guideline development and clinical routine practice. In the context of guideline updates, the existing quality indicators are also subject to the updating process.
As of January 2022, 31 tumour-specific and cross-sectional GPPO guidelines had been published and 192 quality indicators derived. Thereof, 108 quality indicators are implemented in 18 tumour-specific certification procedures in a total of 1,988 certified centres.
For further information about the GGPO, please contact:
Dr. Markus Follmann MPH MSc
