2.3 Configuration of the treatment

The services regularly offered in therapy, diagnostics, care, etc. should be clearly presented in terms of their objectives, execution, documentation requirements and (self-) assessment of key features. Individual services can be described separately. In most cases, however, several services are combined to form treatment procedures, from which complete treatment patterns are then configured.

Particular care must be taken in the presentation of high-risk, unstable or cost-intensive processes, controversial processes, processes with a high degree of variation or with a high degree of cooperation.

The presentation should contain at least

• a detailed and complete description ("specifications") of the patient's expectations of the service
• Information on the quality characteristics of the service and - if available - quantitative characteristic values
• Reference to qualification documents if the result of a procedure cannot be read off directly by subsequent monitoring or measurement
• Information on the responsibilities and the requirements for the skills and qualifications of the personnel carrying out the work
• Details of the resources (equipment, materials, space, etc.) required for the provision of the service
• Criteria that make a certain treatment appear particularly suitable for a certain patient (indication, treatment goals from the patient's perspective)
• Representation of the usual procedure sequence in the flow chart. When configuring complex treatment patterns from individual procedures, the representation of the entire process from admission to discharge of the patient in the flowchart has proven to be effective
• Representation of the connections to other processes
• Presentation of the flow of information to and from the persons involved in the treatment procedure (functions)
• Information on the documentation of the provision of services and the time required for the stages of the measures
• A risk matrix covering all phases of treatment
• Measures taken to protect against the consequences of human error
• Information on how compliance with the process characteristics is to be checked, in particular whether the therapeutic goal has been achieved (treatment goals from the doctor's perspective and from the agreement with the patient during the informed consent discussion).

All contributions to the realization of the overall objective must be listed in the configuration. In addition to medical (medical and nursing) services, this includes contributions from technology and administration, catering and accommodation.

The configuration of a treatment procedure should be formally approved by the management and regularly reviewed. The basic type of procedure, the specifications for the specific implementation process, the quality control and the test methods should be discussed once again by all those involved to determine whether the goals that have been set for the procedure can actually be achieved. Problem areas and shortcomings should be identified and actions with timetables for adjustment should be defined.

Records must be kept of the configuration. The approved treatment instruction is managed as a configuration document by the QM group in the master file. It must be made available as a work instruction to all employees affected by it.