>> “The MHB was founded five years ago, among other things, because we in the state of Brandenburg have to complain about a lack of medical care in many regions and areas,” said MHB President Univ.-Prof. Dr. Prof. hc Dr. hc Edmund AM Neugebauer was one of the around 80 participants who came to the congress and the founding event of the Center for Health Services Research Brandenburg (ZVF-BB) in the large ballroom in the main building of the Ruppin Clinics in Neuruppin. The explicit task of health services research is to provide a remedy here by scientifically examining approaches to improving care and then transferring successful projects into reality for the benefit of patients. “We are very pleased that, in addition to renowned experts from health services research and health practice, both the Science Minister and the Health Minister of the State of Brandenburg have accepted our invitation,” explained Neugebauer in his welcome. This underlines the political relevance of “our concern”.
This is a concern that is met with love. Health services research is a comparatively young branch of health science, but one with increasing relevance, which applies internationally, nationally and regionally for the state of Brandenburg. This was emphasized by Dr. Martina Münch, Minister for Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg, in her welcoming address. Münch continues that she is all the more pleased that the MHB has set a scientific focus on health services research and would like to further distinguish itself in this area. This has very real significance for the state, because the needs and challenges in Brandenburg are “truly great,” explained Münch. But she also thinks beyond the country. Because what is being developed in Brandenburg could be an example for other regions and areas with similar conditions. Here she thinks, among other things, that with the methods of health services research, the translation of clinical trials into everyday care “from bedside to practice” could be achieved more quickly and efficiently. But above all, it is about setting the right course in the health system “to ensure high-quality and sufficient medical and nursing care throughout the country.” Prof. Dr. Dr. Karsten-Henrich Weylandt, the dean of research at the MHB's medical faculty, added a completely different dimension: In his opinion, the 1st Brandenburg Congress on Health Services Research "filled the model image of the interconnectedness of the MHB centers and profile areas with life today".
This also means that with the founding of the new health services research center, this field of science will be anchored even more firmly in the MHB. Weylandt: “We have to think much more not only about 'bench to bed-side', but also about 'bench to healthcare research'.” For example, existing teaching practices could be turned into research practices, he suggested in his closing remarks.
Münch was convinced in her welcoming speech that health services research is well positioned for this because it can advance the collaboration and networking of all players in the healthcare system, but can also integrate municipalities, public administrations, health insurance companies as well as universities and non-university research institutions. She is also thinking about a cross-sector and cross-departmental approach, from nutrition, technology, new materials to digitalization. That is why a new path was taken in the state of Brandenburg by setting up the Brandenburg Health Campus in 2015. This connects the MHB with the Brandenburg Technical University Cottbus Senftenberg, the University of Potsdam and other institutions. The heart of the health campus is the Faculty of Health Sciences, which was jointly founded in February this year and supported by the MHB, the University of Potsdam and the BTU Cottbus Senftenberg. Münch: “This is a nationwide unique cooperation structure between several universities in the health sector, which further strengthens cooperation in the country.” 16 new professorships, 4 of them for the MHB, have been made available for this purpose. One of these professorships at the MHB will focus on healthcare and health system research in the state, which will ensure that “the pressing issues facing the state of Brandenburg will be intensively addressed further.”
For Münch, the 1st Brandenburg Health Services Research Congress in Neuruppin, which, according to Neugebauer, will be permanent in the coming years, marks a first major interim step: “Health services research has become well established in the state of Brandenburg in a short time. This means that we have further exciting tasks ahead of us to further expand health care research and to establish the results in strategies and structures of the health care system.” In her opinion, scientific findings must be timely and practical for all professions involved in interconnected care. can be made usable.
But she also didn't skimp on praise for the MHB and its president: "I would like to thank you, Professor Neugebauer, on behalf of the MHB, for your exemplary work." She particularly emphasized that the MHB has significantly increased the number of its students, which she considers “a good step” that deserves special recognition because it gives the country the opportunity to respond better to the great need for skilled workers in the medical and nursing sectors.
Health Minister Susanna Karawanskij also praised the pioneering work of the MHB, which contributes to medical care in the country with its special form of training, but also brought a whole bunch of wishes and questions that needed to be answered. Firstly, she would like “care research to go at least one step further”, because not only are more good ideas for cross-sector care models needed, but Brandenburg also needs to become a “pioneer and role model”. And secondly, that health services research, in addition to new projects, creates new scientific insights into “whether the political path we have chosen is the right one and where we need to make adjustments”.
By this she meant, among other things, Brandenburg's approach of seeing “hospitals as anchors of medical care”. This would now have to be further developed into outpatient inpatient centers. Karawanskij: “But we also look outside the box at what is promising.” A whole package of measures and projects would be tried out, with the focus usually on overcoming sector boundaries. “These projects are exemplary of the direction we want to take: overcoming existing borders and improving the integration of care structures,” explained the Brandenburg Health Minister, who told the MHB she was extremely grateful to be able to expand the new course of study. This is a risk, “but one that will pay off in the future.”
There are plenty of ideas and projects that are to be processed in the newly founded Center for Health Services Research Brandenburg (ZVF-BB). Based on the research focuses of MHB research (medicine of aging, cardiovascular, carcinoma and mental health), individual working groups discussed with the participants of the congress how research approaches and methods from health care research can be used to address health care problems in practical everyday life of health care not only to identify and analyze, but also, if possible, to solve them. But innovative models and even the entire German healthcare system should also be evaluated, as Prof. Dr. Martin Heinze, the founding director of the Center for Health Services Research Brandenburg (ZVF-BB) at the MHB, stated quite confidently. <<
by: MVF editor-in-chief Peter Stegmaier

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