Hospital report: Reform of hospital structures can make an important contribution to solving personnel problems
20.04.2023 12:56
Reimann: Don't lose sight of the quality of care when reforming. Around 4,700 preventable cancer deaths per year through treatment in certified centers.
The planned shift of hospital treatment to the outpatient area as part of the upcoming hospital reform and the quality-oriented concentration of hospital services at fewer locations can also make important contributions to solving the personnel problems in German hospitals. This is shown by the current hospital report from the AOK Scientific Institute (WIdO) on the subject of “personnel”. On the occasion of the publication of the report, the AOK Federal Association demands that the federal and state governments not lose sight of the central goal of better quality of care for patients in the reform consultations.
For the so-called “short stayers”, who are treated as inpatients for less than four days, there is great potential for avoidable hospital days and thus for relieving the burden on hospital staff, emphasized Prof. Jürgen Wasem, Chair of Medical Management at the University of Duisburg-Essen and co-editor of the hospital report. “The 30 most common surgical procedures with low medical severity alone account for around four percent of all hospital care days,” says Wasem. If one considers the full potential of “outpatient” operations and treatments, significantly more hospital days could be avoided. The planned reform of emergency care also opens up opportunities for staff relief. In Germany, around 50 percent of emergencies are admitted to hospital, while in the Netherlands it is only 32 percent and in France 22 percent. “Overall, the hospital reform currently being discussed offers a whole range of starting points for the urgently needed relief of the staff in the clinics and for a better allocation of the available workforce,” said Wasem.
German staff treat more cases in an international comparison
The number of doctors and nursing staff employed has risen continuously in recent years, but in an international comparison, the staff in German clinics treat more cases on average than employees in other countries. The international average in 2019 was around twelve doctors and 27 nurses per 1,000 hospital cases, while Germany was well below this value with around eight doctors and almost 19 nurses per 1,000 cases. “We have too few staff for the high number of hospital cases in Germany,” Wasem summarized the problem. Due to the collapse in the number of hospital cases during the corona pandemic, there were more doctors and nursing staff per case in 2020 and 2021. “However, there were also many Covid infections among employees during the Omicron wave, which probably negated this effect,” said Wasem.