Gefässchirurgie

The complexity and diversity of surgical/interventional vascular medicine necessitate innovative and pragmatic solutions for the valid measurement of the quality of care in the long term. The secondary utilization of routinely collected data from social insurance institutions has increasingly become the focus of interdisciplinary medicine over the years. Owing to their longitudinal linkage and pan-sector generation, routinely collected data make it possible to answer important questions and can complement quality development projects with primary registry data. Various guidelines exist for their usage, linkage, and reporting. Studies have shown good validity, especially for endpoints with major clinical relevance. The numerous advantages of routinely collected data face several challenges that require thorough plausibility and validity procedures and distinctive methodological expertise. This review presents a discussion of these advantages and challenges and provides recommendations for starting to use this increasingly important source of data.