Summary
To continuously improve quality of health care in German sleep labs, the German Society of Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine (DGSM) established the ‘Process and Outcome Quality Task Force Group’. This interdisciplinary group developed a program for the evaluation of process quality. The core of this program is the ‘Check List of Relevant Process Quality Characteristics’ being evolved during consensus conferences. Both, the check list and a corresponding manual, which contains criteria for assessing quality through graded quality levels, introduce intial standards of quality. Check list as well as manual are the base for assessing process quality in German sleep labs by means of a peer-review-procedure. On the one hand, the results of the process will give information on the status quo of process quality in German sleep medicine. On the other hand, they will serve as a base for further evaluation of quality standards. Both, check list and manual as well as the procedure of the program are presented here.