Quality management systems for the dental practice
Description of different QM-systems on the basis of a workshop


IDZ-Information No. 5/05
Bergmann-Krauss, B., Boehme, P.
Quality management systems for the dental practice

Abstract

Quality management (QM) is an important instrument to document practice structures, processes and results, and to evaluate and to improve them in order to optimise patient care and patient satisfaction.

After the legal introduction of an internal quality management for contracting dentists in the German code of social law this topic has aroused great interest although neither the basic guidelines nor the fundamental requirements for an internal quality management have been adopted yet. Many providers on the market offer their respective models to the dental practices. For the individual dental practice transparency is not given and they feel uncertain whether or not to choose a quality management system and if yes which one to choose. However quality management has already been introduced in many dental practices although it is often not yet systematic and is often not identified as such.

The intention of this IDZ Information on quality management systems for the dental practice is to present to dentists the quality management systems developed by dentists, to point out the special characteristics and to describe what they have in common. This publication is based on a workshop of the Agency for Quality in Dentistry (Zahnaerztliche Zentralstelle Qualitaetssicherung – zzq) in October 2004.

At first the background for introducing quality management systems is being discussed followed by the description of the basic elements of QM in the dental practice. The publication focuses on the description of six different QM systems under the following aspects: development of the project, aims, basic elements, methods and instruments, costs for personnel and overall expenditure, analysis of the pros and cons. It is based on the papers of each of the speakers who presented the different systems. Finally a summary and evaluation of the six QM systems is made by the authors of this IDZ information, Dipl.-Soz. Barbara Bergmann-Krauss, Koeln, and Dr. Peter Boehme, Bremen. It is shown that no ideal QM system exists for all dental practices but that a choice has to be made which systems are best suited to a specific dental practice on account of their different aims, priorities, instruments and costs. Therefore each practice has to select the QM which best suits its requirements.