[Management of acute pain therapy: guidelines, recommendations and current practice in german hospitals].

Organisational requirements and the education and training of stuff provide the basis for an adequate supply of quality in acute pain and should be the focus of efforts. Although organizational recommendations of the German guideline on "treatment of acute perioperative and post-traumatic pain" have been increasingly established in practice within the last few years, in many German hospitals there is still lagging far behind in the implementation of general supply conditions, such as regular pain measurement or the introduction of appropriate standardized treatment protocols for all areas of the hospital.As specialized care structures acute pain services have been implemented in 80% of the German hospitals, but only 45% of them meet quality criteria. Due to the heterogeneous realization of acute pain management in different hospitals, it comes apparent, that general guideline recommendations and binding definitions are required to achieve adequate supply conditions. © Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart · New York.