The results from the first five years of the present study provide proof of concept for the feasibility of a novel, voluntary, nationwide system for benchmarking the quality of BC care based on collaboration between a network of specialist breast centres and an independent external provider of scientific data collection and data analysis services.
A system of benchmark problems is proposed for future reference.
To the best of our knowledge this is the first publication in the international literature to report on the implementation of, and present initial data from, a comprehensive nationwide QA system for benchmarking the quality of cancer care along the entire process from diagnosis to follow-up.
After five years, more than 60% of the estimated annual total of 50,000 new cases of breast cancer in Germany can be said to be diagnosed, treated and followed up at one of the now 220 specialist hospitals and breast centres participating in the nationwide system for benchmarking the quality of breast cancer care.
Furthermore, at the supra-institutional level, our classification could be used for inter-hospital comparisons or even in the context of benchmarking systems to achieve greater transparency as regards the current situation and quality of care in the surgical management of breast cancer.
Then, we examine a 2-cell system (that primarily serves the purpose of benchmarking the target setting heuristic) and a 7-cell system that more realistically represents a multicell system.
However the underlying solutions suggested after the method of benchmarking health systems in various countries and setting them vis-à-vis problems of the Greek system (viz. per capita and additional payments, salaries and extra contracts etc).
This multiphase process started by obtaining baseline data describing the accuracy of existing manual methods for obtaining moment arms during the observation of dynamic lifting for the purposes of benchmarking the automated system.
Displacements derived using linear and non-linear surface deformation models were validated with respect to the first order system of levelling benchmarks which form the Amsterdam Ordnance Datum (NAP).
The closed loop performance of such a system is benchmarked against the solution of a related optimal control problem (OCP).
