AOK welcomes proposals from the government commission to reform the emergency service
07.09.2023 17:38
The “Government Commission for Modern and Needs-Based Hospital Care” today presented its recommendations for reforming the emergency services together with Minister Lauterbach. The deputy chairman of the AOK federal association, Jens Martin Hoyer, praises the commission's proposals:
“A comprehensive reform of the emergency services is overdue because there is currently a lot going on here. The government commission's proposals address the right issues and can significantly improve the quality of the emergency service. It is important, for example, that patients with strokes or heart attacks are no longer transported to the nearest hospital, as unfortunately still happens far too often. Instead, they should be cared for in clinics with adequate personnel and technical equipment to treat these emergencies.
In order to achieve this goal, we need needs-based control of patients through integrated control centers as central contact and coordination facilities. They should work with a uniform technical system and direct emergencies to the right place across sectors and across national borders. Here, the government commission's proposals to regulate uniform, nationwide quality standards for the emergency services and to create an independent standard in Book V of the Social Code point in exactly the right direction.
In the future, operational planning will no longer be allowed to stop at district and state borders. The prerequisite for this is that the current utilization of ambulances and clinics is digitally available and made transparent nationwide. We therefore expressly welcome the Commission's proposal to set up a digital real-time register of existing resources and to create uniform standards for the entire federal territory.
When it comes to financing the rescue service, however, it should not ultimately result in the costs of original tasks being shifted by states and municipalities towards statutory health insurance.”