[Continence and pelvic floor centers-Meaningful certification requirements?]

As a consequence of the demographic change, the prevalence of female and male bladder and bowel dysfunction, functional pelvic floor disorders and pelvic organ prolapse are steadily increasing. Continence and pelvic floor centers are interdisciplinary facilities that focus on these functional disorders, including malformations, tumors and functional disorders resulting from neurogenic diseases, injuries or surgery. The affected patient clientele includes children, women, and men of all ages. The certification is carried out by the accredited certification company CERT iQ Certification Services. In addition to structural requirements, personal quality criteria are also implemented in the novel harmonized and standardized certification system. The assessment of treatment quality is also a component of the procedure, although it is currently limited to the midurethral sling tracer procedure for the treatment of female stress urinary incontinence. Regarding the other conservative and surgical treatment options for pelvic floor, bladder and bowel functional disorders, no quality of outcome has so far been recorded. Internationally recognized and validated questionnaires to assess preoperative and postoperative quality of life would be valuable tools to define the quality of treatment and outcome. Similarly, supplementary thresholds should be established for complication rates and quality of the success of treatment to identify centers with high expertise. In this context, it is crucial to consider the individual complexity of the patient groups and to distinguish between primary and recurrent interventions.
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