Minimum volume standards in hospitals: the first IQWiG projects have started

Under the German Hospital Reform Act 2024, the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) may commission the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) to develop scientific recommendations for determining and regularly updating minimum volume standards for health service groups in hospital care. This has now been done for the first time – in May, the Institute was awarded commissions for the following six service groups:

• Arthroplasty hip
• Revision hip arthroplasty
• Arthroplasty knee
• Revision knee arthroplasty
• Carotid surgery / interventional
• Complex peripheral arterial vessels

IQWiG now has time until the beginning of August 2026 to work on these commissions, using methods it specifically developed for this purpose and presented last year. These methods involve deriving the recommended minimum volume standards based on both quality and efficiency criteria.

“We are very pleased that the go-ahead has now been given for specific projects, following the extensive methodological groundwork we have already carried out,” says Tim Mathes, Head of IQWiG’s Health Economics Department. “With our recommendations, we aim to contribute to high-quality, sustainable health care for patients.”

IQWiG’s recommendations will form the basis for an analysis by the Institute for the Hospital Remuneration System (InEK) of the impact of the respective minimum volume standard on the number and geographical distribution of hospital sites in Germany. Based on these analyses, the BMG will set minimum volume standards for each service group through a legal ordinance, which must then be approved by the Bundesrat.