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"I am very pleased that the final evaluation report draws such a positive overall conclusion and recommends maintaining the Innovation Fund as a permanent funding instrument." This was stated by Prof. Josef Hecken, Chairman of the Innovation Committee of the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), on the occasion of the publication of the final report by Prognos AG on the scientific evaluation of the Innovation Fund, which was commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG). According to Hecken, the final report, which covers the years 2019 to 2021, confirms the coalition parties' plans to permanently establish the Innovation Fund, which was previously limited to 2024.
19.05.2022
Unlike digital health systems (DIGA) and video consultations, telemonitoring requires asynchronous communication and a distribution of tasks between patients, medical centers, patient care providers, and service providers. Cloud services are ideally suited for this. Seamless telemonitoring requires constant availability and lightning-fast scaling, which only cloud services, with their enormous computing power, can provide. The cloud also offers greater protection against hacker attacks, data loss, and system failures than operating a computer in a doctor's office. Hybrid cloud solutions for telemonitoring already exist that meet the requirements of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).
19.05.2022
Commentary by Peter Stegmaier, Editor-in-Chief of "Monitor Versorgungsforschung"
19.05.2022
Four million people in need of care receiving home care will be entitled to access to digital care applications (DIPA) in the future. While the unmet needs in care are generally significant, not all areas of care are equally suited to digitalization. Integration into the overall care ecosystem is crucial.
19.05.2022
After last year's MVF specialist congress "Vaccination Status 2021 - Vaccination in Adults in Times of the Pandemic", "Monitor Health Services Research" is continuing the thematic cycle. There was discussion again about what could be done better to generally increase vaccination rates. At the end of April, the speakers and participants in the online specialist congress “Vaccination status 2022 – vaccination in times of pandemic” discussed possible approaches, this time specifically for children and young people, especially with a look at the now almost half a million war refugees from Ukraine and Russia too – most of them small children and their mothers. In addition, Dr. med. Gunther Gosch, practicing pediatrician (pediatrician's practice at Domplatz in Magdeburg) and member of the board of the Saxony-Anhalt Medical Association and the Saxony-Anhalt Vaccination Working Group: “Diphtheria is still endemic in Russia, so it would be entirely possible that this "Vaccine-preventable disease is being reintroduced selectively - it could be similar with tetanus and whooping cough." An incentive to look at the inadequate vaccination rates in Germany from a completely different perspective.
19.05.2022
The structuration theory of the British sociologist Anthony Giddens (1984) is a social theory that places social practices, i.e., recurring actions, at the center of its analysis and explanation. Structures are typically reproduced through such practices, while action, in turn, is conditioned by structures, meaning it is both limited and enabled by them. From the perspective of structuration theory, the use of outpatient care over inpatient care would be such a practice. This practice utilizes outpatient infrastructure and thus reproduces the existence of a strong outpatient sector as a structural feature of the German healthcare system. At the same time, it is also true that only if the outpatient infrastructure exists and actors such as patients and healthcare professionals "know" that outpatient treatment is generally preferred can corresponding action be taken. The aim of structuration theory is to connect the levels of analysis of action and structure more closely than in other approaches and to take their mutual interdependence seriously. Therefore, the theory is used in various disciplines to explore the scope of action of individual and collective actors (such as organizations in the outpatient or inpatient sector) in regulated or institutionalized contexts with regard to both change and stability (see Wilz 2019, Sydow/Wirth 2014 or den Hond et al. 2012).
19.05.2022
The theory of path dependence (David 1985; Arthur 1994; Sydow et al. 2009) is a central approach, not least in organization and management research, to explain the rigidity of organizations, technologies or systems to change. The theory assumes that the subsequent developments after critical, often initially seemingly insignificant events gradually limit actors' scope for decision-making. Self-reinforcing mechanisms then lead to the development of a path that ultimately leads to a “lock-in”. In this condition, it is very difficult to deviate from the path. However, path-breaking strategies can be able to override the self-reinforcing mechanisms or steer them in a new direction.
19.05.2022
The “Multimedication and Health Services Research” chair at the Institute for General Medicine at Goethe University Frankfurt is the only one in Germany to date that has been endowed by a service provider. The founder and owner of Insight Health, Roland Lederer († 2019), who died far too early, was firmly convinced that data in itself does not have great value, but what you do with it represents the value. With the name of the chair “Multimedication and Health Services Research” founded in 2019, health care research was clearly placed in the foreground. With this in mind, new studies are being designed in the work area: These aim to make the lives of patients with multimorbidity and multimedication easier and to take patient preferences into account.
19.05.2022
In the presence of Michael Zaske, Head of the Health Department in the Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Integration and Consumer Protection of the State of Brandenburg, the outpatient-inpatient center (ASZ) officially opened its doors on March 30, 2022 at the Sana Hospital location in Templin. The ceremonial act marked the beginning of a new era of regionally conceived, tested and implemented health care with many partners, which was carried out as part of the innovation fund project “IGiB - Structural migration in the middle area of Templin” and with funds from the hospital structural fund from January 1st, 2017 to December 31st, 2020 established and has been continued since July 2021 with the help of a consortium agreement between the Sana Kliniken Berlin-Brandenburg, the medical network “Gesund in Templin”, the city of Templin and the KV Brandenburg. Almost at the same time, the innovation committee at the G-BA also recommended the project to other regions of Germany in a positive recommendation for inclusion in standard care.
19.05.2022
Since forms of reimbursed medical treatment have become known, there have also been fears that healthcare professionals will recommend care options to their patients that are not or not yet necessary. This fear becomes explosive in terms of health policy with regard to statutory health insurance, in which the costs and consequential costs for treatments that are not reported or not yet reported are financed in solidarity by all of the insured (Breyer/Zweifel/Kifmann, 2013; Breyer/Buchholz, 2021). As early as 2000/2001, the Advisory Council stated in its report that care with non-indicated services or with services without a sufficiently secured net benefit is tantamount to "medical oversupply". On the other hand, services with only a minor benefit that no longer justifies the costs or are provided in an inefficient (i.e. uneconomical) form are classified as “economic oversupply” (Sachverständigenrat 2000/2001). This form of incorrect care is also associated with incorrectly set incentives, which manifest themselves in low-threshold access conditions and can thus lead to the use of inappropriate levels of care (John/Stillfried 2021).