Summary Summary: Irrespective of the particular medical field in which it is operating, intensive care represents one of the areas within the hospital, which, on account of the large amount of resources used, is particularly cost-intensive. Intensive care covers a broad spectrum of treatment ranging from post-anaesthetic monitoring to critically ill patients who have undergone multiple organ-replacement procedures. The aim must now be to obtain a more precise definition of what intensive care involves, taking the following aspects into consideration: quality assurance, in-house resource planning, adequate remuneration, medico-legal requirements and medical research. Until now there has been no generally accepted definition of the criteria necessary to achieve this aim, criteria which would also have to be binding at an interdisciplinary level. The German Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine (DGAI) and the German Interdisciplinary Association of Critical Care Medicine (DIVI) have jointly agreed on a core data set for intensive care medicine which could meet the requirements stated. This article will show how the interdisciplinary project relating to the collection of core data in the field of intensive care medicine is carried out at the Berlin Charité University Hospital.