FQSD (Forum for Quality Systems in Diabetes Care) is a non profit association active in Austria and Germany. FQSD aims to improve the care and treatment of diabetes patients and those with diabetes associated comorbidities. Members of the association include doctors, nurses, counsellors and other professionals involved in the care of patients with diabetes.
The members of the FQSD participate in a quality assurance programme. The main activities of the FQSD are:
Quality feedback for health care providers (reports, analyses, open benchmarking)
Organization of biannual meetings to encourage discussion in identifying models of best practice that are best able to achieve the goals of the St. Vincent declaration.
Promotion of quality circles as a method for professional education and open discussion on quality issues.
The web application service Healthgate BARS (Benchmarking and Reporting Service) is used to support these activities. It offers quarterly feedback analyses as well as ad hoc analyses, which can be tailored to the users' needs and carried out at any time and location. Both types of reports describe patient characteristics and quality indicators relating to process and outcome in an open benchmarking manner. Such benchmarking enables participating facilities to assess and compare the quality of their own care. With Healthgate BARS, data are either collected online or imported, when they have been collected elsewhere. Healthgate BARS has been developed by JOANNEUM RESEARCH. It is available on www.healthgate.at. On the basis of FQSD and Healthgate BARS a structured teaching programme in the Austrian provinces of Styria, Carinthia, Vienna and Salzburg was developed. The aim of this teaching programme was to train diabetes professionals in how to empower patients to improve the management of their own condition.
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