25 Jahre Qualitätssicherung Carotis

German carotid quality assurance collects a series of items regarding the invasive treatment of extracranial carotid stenosis in German hospitals on a legally mandated basis.

This article provides an overview of the historical development of carotid quality assurance and secondary data analyses as well as a comparison of the data foundation with national registries of other countries.

A summary of the annual results of German carotid quality assurance is provided, along with a comparison of key variables with the American Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) and the Swedish Swedvasc Register.

Particularly concerning the information necessary for in-depth statistical risk adjustment, German quality assurance demonstrates a smaller data foundation.

To draw even more meaningful insights from quality assurance data in the future, an expansion of the collected variables would be advisable.