[Quality management of treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in a rheumatological setting].

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory rheumatic disease affecting about 1% of the general population world-wide. It is characterised by severe pain and a reduction of functional capacity leading to a reduced quality of life. The initiation of an early, effective, continuous and long-term treatment is essential for preventing or delaying progression of disease as long as possible.

[Quality assurance of rheumatologic patient education].

Since 1989 patient education programmes for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and other spondylarthropathies, systemic lupus erythematosus, vasculitis, fibromyalgia, and juvenile chronic arthritis and their parents have been developed by an interdisciplinary team of the German Society of Rheumatology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Rheumatologie). Up to date, about 500 people were trained to be group leaders or specialised trainers with an associated train-the-trainer program. In 1999, the Society discharged preliminary guidelines for patient education in rheumatology.

[Round-table-talk on patient education in rheumatology].

Primarily the discussion group focused on obtaining current information about the existing patient education programs for different rheumatic diseases developed by a working group of the German Society of Rheumatology, about the institutions running the patient education courses, the train-the-trainer seminars, the costs and the problems of fund raising from the health insurance companies. As a successful example for running patient education courses in an outpatient setting, the cooperation between the Arthritis Center of Hannover and the League against Rheumatism in Lower Saxony was illustrated. Then the group defined three important future tasks: to reach a standard of funding patient education by every health insurance company in Germany, to increase the efforts to inform the public about patient education and to establish a nation-wide network of patient education centers.