In principle, quality management in nursing care follows the concepts used in medicine. Occasionally, professionals develop quality requirements and pursue quality improvements by using various tools. Specific features in Germany's nursing care are related to the binding character of seven so-called expert standards and to mandatory, external quality assessments that began in 2009 and will be conducted and published yearly. Preliminary results of these assessments show that both home health agencies and nursing homes provide on average good quality nursing care. However, assessments also revealed a huge demand for improvements concerning the quality criteria and the procedures used to calculate the results. Currently, nursing scientists, providers of care, and long-term care insurance companies are controversially discussing that matter.