When patients are asked what quality means in medicine, the answers vary widely. They often mention things like friendliness, waiting times, or waiting room amenities. From a medical perspective, however, the aforementioned criteria have no influence on the quality of treatment. Even review portals cannot reflect this quality. The quality of medical treatment or diagnostics is very difficult for laypeople to assess. It is made up of many components. Technical equipment, professional competence, and care are certainly among them. In recent years, health insurance companies and the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians have been trying to improve the quality of diagnostics and medical therapy. For this reason, verifiable quality criteria for ultrasound examinations were introduced in orthopedics in 2009. This affects, for example, the quality assurance agreement for infant hip replacement. This agreement stipulates a minimum standard of technical equipment and relies on a high level of professional skill that leads to reproducible results. The aim, for example, is to remove ultrasound devices from circulation that are so poor or old that diagnostics are only inadequately possible.
What has changed as a result?
Over the past five years, the number of orthopedic practices in Saarland that offer ultrasound diagnostics, for example, for infant hips, has shrunk from over 50 to 19. Instead of modernizing technology or improving quality, they often choose not to provide ultrasound services at all. This is despite the fact that ultrasound examinations now play an integral role in the diagnosis of many medical conditions.
It plays a significant role in the diagnosis of many medical conditions. From the very beginning, we have strived to offer our patients high-quality ultrasound diagnostics. Compared to other procedures, ultrasound examinations offer an unparalleled ability to quickly and reliably visualize diseases in images, and are completely radiation-free. We currently have two modern ultrasound machines that far exceed the requirements. Our patients can be assured that we will continue to strive for quality and modernize technology in the future.