| Sumario: | The primary goal of clinical treatment is the process optimization and assurance; in other words, it is the optimal quality of patient care that is aimed for. Locally coined guidelines, which individual health institutions demand from treatment paths, are a secondary outcome. In order to establish specific levels of care, and to submit the treatment paths to continuous improvement, regular cycles of evaluation are indispensable. Up to this day, only few evaluations, mostly addressing the influence of 'pathways' on individual and critical 'parameters', have been published. However, evaluations in a scientific sense are much more ambitious. According to Bortz and Döring (1995), they calf for 'a systematic application of research methods to evaluate the given concept, the examination plan, and the implementation and efficiency of intervention.' The lack of corresponding publications gave reason to this exemplary evaluation of a pneumonia treatment path. The research at hand is the result. This abstract was translated into English by the publisher or author.
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