To a large extent, medical rehabilitation is an independent part of the German health system. Since the middle of the 1980s it has undergone a modification process oriented towards different objectives. Quality assurance programs and strengthened scientific rehabilitation research have been introduced with the aim of optimizing results and user orientation. The quality assurance programs have been routinely implemented for most of the rehabilitative areas of indication. Procedures and instruments for data collection, analysis, and feedback to the clinics involved have been developed with regard to the dimensions of the quality of structures, processes, and rehabilitative outcome. Current demands on the programs relate to the handling of the results in the involved clinics, a convergence of the quality assurance programs of the federal pension insurance with those of the health insurance organizations, and an evaluation of the procedure as a whole.
