For the judgment of the quality of medical services and for the progress of
clinical medicine the comparison of data and informations of the diagnosti
c and therapeutic process is demanded. Therefore a systematic and concrete
system of documentation should be implemented in every clinic, which consis
ts of standard nomenclature, classification, instruments of outcome measure
and documentation standards. There are a group of problems and barriers wh
ich stand in the way of this goal. It is useful to build a minimum basis da
ta set which includes core criterias of clinical dokumentation in orthopedi
c surgery and include this in an information system so that all of these pa
rts are considered and that a central and comparable data pool is offered f
or patient care, quality management and research.