>> “Culture is what you do when no one is looking.” With these simple, yet true words, Hon.-Prof. (DPU) Dr. med. Günther Jonitz, one of the co-founders of the Patient Safety Action Alliance (APS) and chairman of the patient safety working group at the gesundheitsziel.de cooperation group, summarizes what the new health goal “patient safety” wants to achieve: nothing less than a change in the patient safety culture (goal 1). Because, says Jonitz: “Patient safety is worth it for everyone and it concerns us all. It must therefore be solved as a collective task.”
Jonitz continues that there is a lot of potential in the subject of patient safety. The increased performance of medicine enables many people to have access to high-quality medical and nursing care; In the event of illness or need for care, we all trusted that we would be safe and well looked after. Unfortunately, this is not always the case for various reasons.  
According to Jonitz, the relevance of the topic has fortunately also been recognized at the international level. The health goal of patient safety, with its measures and recommendations for action, contributes to the implementation of the WHO's “Global Action Plan 2021-2030” for the German health system. In 2017, the WHO adopted at least essential parts of the strategy from Germany: “Looking for and creating solutions, cooperation and respectful interaction.”
With the health goal of patient safety, an instrument is to be presented that will strengthen the quality of care and serve to coordinate measures in the complex healthcare system. In addition, the publication represents “an important guideline for public health activities at different levels”.
For Jonitz, however, patient safety is much more than “just” safety for patients. If implemented correctly, it also results in higher quality and safety, higher efficiency and higher job satisfaction for healthcare professionals. “We can expect a win-win-win situation,” says Jonitz, but only if a few conditions are met. This is mainly due to the multi-professionalism: It's not just...
the individual doctors or nurses who are involved in patient safety and are responsible for safety, but also many different groups: pharmacists, the nursing professions and even cleaners. But the patients themselves and their relatives could also make their contribution to patient safety. In order to achieve this, we must start at the structural level. Jonitz: “We have to keep an eye on how processes in the healthcare system can be organized in such a way that greater patient safety is possible.” There is also a need for better framework conditions and support from patients. Here he quotes the doyen of patient safety, Don Berwick from the USA, who once said: “We have good people in bad systems and good people in bad systems will fail.”
In order to achieve a better system and an increase in patient safety, two aspects are defined as central to the new health goal: on the one hand, the promotion of patient safety culture and, on the other hand, the promotion of patient safety competence - both among the patients and among them healthcare actors.
The new health goal systematically addresses these two basic requirements for patient safety. According to Jonitz, in addition to the two main goals, patient safety culture and competence, there are downstream sub-goals in which the individual aspects are discussed in more detail, which are to be understood as critical success factors for increasing patient safety culture and patient safety competence. Jonitz: “Our aim was to formulate concrete action measures and explicitly name actors who can implement these action measures.”
The working group of the cooperation group focuses on proactivity and pursues a preventative approach. In addition, where it makes sense, it is advocated to think as cross-sectorally, multi-professionally and interdisciplinarily as possible.
The main goal of patient safety culture is particularly important to Jonitz because it takes the system perspective into account. “It's about how we deal with mistakes and adverse events and the people who disclose them. We must show gratitude for those who take responsibility and use the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.” In concrete terms, this means: It is about the attitudes and actions that work towards the sustainable prevention of errors and critical and undesirable events. What is important is a collaboration that always keeps the well-being of the patients in mind and takes into account the different perspectives of those involved. It has been proven that such a culture is positively associated with better patient-relevant outcomes. Here he quotes Don Berwick again, who also once said: “You must choose between fear or safety”. <<

from: MVF boss. Peter Stegmaier

Sub-goal 1.1
Patient safety culture is the foundation for safe patient care. Patient safety culture is lived by healthcare workers and facilities.
Sub-goal 1.2
Patient safety culture is embedded in the healthcare system as well as in the social system. The framework conditions for patient safety culture are continually being improved.
Sub-goal 1.3
Patient safety culture is continually developed and evaluated. Tools to strengthen patient safety culture are used in all areas of healthcare. The findings of the evaluation are used to continuously improve the patient safety culture.
Sub-goal 1.4
A culture of learning and feedback is anchored in the healthcare system. The principle of the learning organization is practiced in the healthcare system.
Sub-goal 1.5
Patients actively contribute to patient safety. You and your relatives are informed and encouraged to get actively involved and ask questions.
Sub-goal 1.6
Cooperation is an integral component of patient safety culture. This also means that communication and information transfer in healthcare facilities, both internally and externally and, if necessary, across sectors, is geared first and foremost to the safety of patients and the prevention of faulty processes.

Sub-goal 2.1
Good health literacy, including patient safety literacy, is widespread in the population. Knowledge about patient rights and good health information (including patient safety) is easily accessible.
Sub-goal 2.2
All population groups are addressed in an appropriate manner. Vulnerable patient groups are given special consideration. Specific risks for different population groups are known.
Sub-goal 2.3
Patients and their relatives actively participate in the development of measures to improve their health
Patient safety competency. Necessary support is available.
Sub-goal 2.4
The acquisition of patient safety skills is ensured in the training, further education and further training of all healthcare workers. Health facilities promote the teaching of patient safety skills.
Sub-goal 2.5
Patients know the options for expressing suggestions, feedback and complaints. These reports are simple and barrier-free and are supported by healthcare workers.
Sub-goal 2.6
Critical events are taken seriously and evaluated. We learn from mistakes. Findings are used to improve patient safety in healthcare.

gesundheitsziel.de is a cooperative network that pursues a broad societal approach based on the principle of “Health in All Policies”. The network with more than 140 German health care organizations makes an important contribution to the formulation of pluralistically developed health goals in Germany. The gesundheitsziel.de project emerged in 2000 from the GVG committee “Medical Orientation in the Health Care System” and initially began as a model project for the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG). In 2006 it was transferred to health care and social security organizations. Since 2000, ten national health goals have been developed, some of which have already been updated and published.
1) Diabetes mellitus type 2: reduce the risk of disease, identify and treat those affected early* (2003)
2) Breast cancer: reduce mortality, increase quality of life* (2003)
3) Reduce tobacco consumption* (2003, updated 2015)
4) Growing up healthy: life skills, exercise, nutrition* (2003, updated 2010)
5) Increase health competence, strengthen patient sovereignty* (2003, update 2011)
6) Depressive illnesses: prevent, detect early, treat sustainably* (2006)
7) Growing older healthily (2012) (was included in the Prevention Act (§ 20 SGB V) in 2015)
8) Reduce alcohol consumption* (2015)
9) Health around birth (2017)
10) Obesity (2022)

After the end of the Second World War in 1945, the German insurance industry was in ruins. The often fragmented institutions of social and private insurance pursued their own goals, hermetically separated from each other under the different conditions of the Allied military administrations. At the same time, there were efforts to save and strengthen German social security.
Two directions for the reconstruction of German social insurance emerged at that time: reconstruction on the old foundations and preservation of a structured social insurance system or a centralized uniform insurance system.
Against the background of this situation characterized by uncertainty, the Society for Insurance Science and Design was created.
The founding event took place in Hamburg on May 9, 1947. Representatives from social security, private insurance, business, trade, the medical profession and individual scientists took part. The area of influence and membership initially remained limited to the British zone of occupation.
As early as the year it was founded in 1947, the GVG actors spoke out in favor of structured social insurance. This goal set in the so-called “Bielefeld Resolution” ultimately achieved a breakthrough – also thanks to the GVG. The aim was to reform both social health insurance and social pension insurance and at the same time to emphasize the commonality of the tasks of private and social insurance.