[The future issues of health services research: what do experts say?]

Background: The expectations of health services research are growing with its recognition and acceptance as an independent field within health research. What are the issues that health services research should deal with in future to perform the tasks it will be confronted with? Different health-care players like physicians, scientists, sponsors, and third-party payers were invited to give answers to these questions which was the aim of the workshop held in Cologne on the 8th November 2010. The IMVR (Institute for Medical Sociology, Health Services Research, and Rehabilitation Science, University of Cologne) and WINEG (Scientific Institute of TechnikerKrankenkasse for the Benefit and Efficiency in Health Care) jointly hosted the 'Expert Workshop - Future Issues of Health Services Research' in order to get closer to meeting this goal.

Methods: Experts met in 4 focus groups to identify the future issues of health services research in the one-day workshop in Cologne in November 2010. The participants discussed their proposed issues in a moderated session and decided on the key future issues of health services research in a double voting procedure.

Results: 36 experts accepted the invitation. Of these 6 were experts of the medical profession, 4 of the group of sponsors, 13 scientific experts and 13 experts of the groups of third-party payers. According to their rating, "intersectoral networking", "patients' preferences", and "the evaluation of innovations, processes, and methods" are the 3 key future issues of health services research.

Conclusions: The experts developed the key future issues for health services research according to their opinion. They answered the question on the issues, health services research should be occupied with in future, i.e. a broad range of topics. To a certain extent, they returned to former issues and problems for which satisfactory solutions have not yet been found.