Consensus of Scientists and Practitioners

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BDIZ EDI has dedicated its efforts to developing a quality guideline in implantology and thus to reach a consensus with scientists and practitioners. More than ten years ago the Q+R Committee of BDIZ EDI established the first standards for implant systems. Meanwhile the 3rd edition of the BDIZ EDI manual for implant registry and the register for renewable materials has been published.

In order to meet quality assurance in implantology BDIZ EDI established and enhanced an area-wide and competent network of legal witnesses. In cooperation with the Fraunhofer institute of materials science (Fraunhofer Institut für Werkstoffkunde, IWM) in Freiburg, Germany the BDIZ EDI is successfully working on testing and certifying implant systems by awarding seal of approval. In the year 2000, all areas and aspects of dental quality in implantology have been published at the white paper of implantology. Nevertheless long-term developments show the complex and almost impossible venture of rating quality of dental work which is being discussed controversially among experts.

Key objective of the quality guidelines is to give implantologists a benchmark thatll enable him/her to rate his/her own work. Quality guidelines are made for self-assessment and self-evaluation. It is exclusively the practitioner who knows the work done and who knows best his patients, their wishes and problems. Only the practitioner is able to rate whether or not the basic conditions that are important for medical treatment have influenced the result of therapy in either a positive or negative way.

Not to forget to mention the importance of criteria described in the quality guidelines. The criteria are to realign to the standards of dental science and are therefore only valid within a surrounding of dental and a health care policy where apart from the statutory health care funds these benchmarks will not be disregarded. Therefore, the professional findings of the quality guidelines are also valid for other countries. However, the criteria do not apply to health care systems with differing relations between patient and professional and will then cause misinterpretation and false evidence.

Current quality guidelines are the first effort made to describe quality of dental implant treatment in Germany. In order to be effective, the guideline needs to be constantly updated and enhanced. Talking about dentist and profession we of course include male and female practitioners and we include the oral and maxillofacial surgeons, who have both license to practice medicine and license to practice dentistry in Germany.

Quality Guidelines Implantology of BDIZ EDI can be obtained in print by sending mail to office-munich@bdizedi.org