Archive:
The corona pandemic poses major challenges for the healthcare system. There was great concern about overload, particularly with regard to intensive care capacities. The discussion about the right prevention, therapy and care concepts remains intense [1]. In addition to symptomatic measures, the treatment concept for Covid-19 includes oxygen administration, non-invasive and invasive ventilation, thromboembolism prophylaxis and the administration of dexamethasone in severe cases [2]. The evaluation of routine data during the course of the pandemic can meaningfully supplement surveillance via legal procedures and the development of registers in a timely manner and without additional collection effort. The Quality Indicators for Church Hospitals Association (QKK e. V.) has therefore quickly added the topic of Covid-19 to its cross-agency quality benchmarking. The Covid-19 module includes 27 key figures in the QKK indicator set for 2021, including intensive care, complications, ventilation and mortality (see https://www.qkk-online.de/). The QKK e. V. can use the routine data from its member institutions to make a comparison between the first and second waves of the corona pandemic in order to support the further development of treatment concepts for patients with Covid-19.
07.08.2021
The renowned infectious disease specialist and healthcare researcher Prof. Dr. Matthias Schrappe and his team of authors were the first to express a strong suspicion in their ad-hoc statement 3.0, "On the Role of Intensive Care in the SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 Epidemic" (1), writing on May 17 of this year: "In any case, the decline in available beds appears to be more a consequence of the decrease in overall capacity than a result of increased utilization by Covid-19 patients." This statement not only met with considerable opposition but also with some serious personal attacks. These subsided, however, when the Federal Court of Auditors took up the figures he had published in "Monitor Healthcare Research" and, on June 9, in its "Report pursuant to Section 88 Paragraph 2 of the Federal Budget Code on the Audit of Selected Corona-Related Expenditure Items of Budget Chapter 15 and the Health Fund," even criticized the fact "that the current system of compensation payments enables undesirable windfall gains." Recently, SPD health expert Prof. Dr. Karl Lauterbach commented on this in the „Bild“ format „Hard but wise“ (2), expressing even more far-reaching suspicions.
07.08.2021
Employees in the nursing professions have been exposed to frequent psychological and emotional stress as well as severe physical demands since the Covid-19 pandemic (Schmucker 2020). Current publications have already addressed additional effects on the experience of stress. In an online survey by Hower et al. (2020), the managers of nursing facilities and services surveyed cited concerns about Covid-19 infections among those in need of care and employees as the greatest burden. A survey of health professionals shows similar results; 73% of respondents (n = 1,150) are concerned about the health of patients or residents, and even more (83%, n = 1,156) are concerned about the health of relatives and friends. More than half (54%, n = 624) feel stressed in their everyday work due to the pandemic (Wildgruber et al. 2020).
07.08.2021
On January 28, 2020, the Scientific Commission for a Modern Remuneration System (KOMV) handed over its “recommendations for a modern remuneration system” to the Federal Minister of Health (KOMV 2019).1 The coalition agreement for the 19th legislative period instructed it to “by the end of 2019 "Taking into account all related medical, legal and economic questions" to develop proposals for "a modern compensation system" that "represents the care needs of the population and the status of medical progress" (Coalition Agreement 2018, 4589-4594). The passage in the coalition agreement setting up the Scientific Commission was rounded off with a remarkable outlook: “Whether these suggestions will be implemented will be decided afterwards” (Coalition Agreement 2018, 4593f.). This cute, because somehow self-evident statement was an expression of the coalition's disunity: While Karl Lauterbach, the SPD's chief negotiator for the health policy part of the coalition agreement, saw the merger of the two remuneration systems for medical services as a building block of a unified health insurance system, the CDU was likely to do so /CSU have connected the declaration of intent "for the drawer" with this sentence (Jacobs 2020, 14).
07.08.2021
The 20th German Congress for Health Services Research (October 6-8, 2021) will take place under the motto "Understanding the Healthcare Context – Promoting Knowledge Transfer." The congress, whose central thesis is that healthcare design and transfer cannot succeed without a deep understanding of the complex healthcare context, will introduce the topic in a high-profile international session. Among the participants will be Prof. Dr. Jeffrey Braithwaite (Director of the Center for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science, Macquarie University, Australia) and Prof. Dr. Russell Mannion (Chair and Research Director, Health Services Management Center, University of Birmingham, UK), who will present their respective perspectives in an interview with "Monitor Health Services Research.".
07.06.2021
Comment from Prof. Dr. Reinhold Roski (editor of “Monitor Health Care Research”) and Peter Stegmaier (editor-in-chief of “Monitor Health Care Research”)
07.06.2021
Comment from Prof. Dr. Franz Porzsolt (Chairman of the Institute of Clinical Economics (ICE) eV) with the collaboration of Philipp Legrum (member and computer scientist of the Institute of Clinical Economics (ICE) eV)
07.06.2021
Anyone who would like to initiate innovative projects in the area of health care can make use of various funding sources. On the one hand, there is the German Research Allowance Act (FzulG), which provides for tax support for research and development for companies, but also for institutes and research facilities. On the other hand, there is classic funding from the BMBF, the BMG or from institutions and foundations at national or EU level as well as that of the Innovation Fund for New Forms of Care and Health Care Research. OptiMedis, a company for management, analytics and research in the healthcare sector, is taking a completely different path that has previously been ignored in the healthcare industry by raising additional capital through investors - in 2017 with an impact investor and in 2019 with a group of private individuals from science and " “friends and family” who have subscribed to convertible bonds that can be converted into company shares the next time they invest.
07.06.2021
Nothing less than the “medical research of the future” should be discussed in a new online discussion format from Pfizer. Under the title “Evolution or Revolution?”, Thomas Schulz, author of the book “Future Medicine – How Silicon Valley wants to defeat diseases and extend our lives”, Eva Schumacher-Wulf, the editor-in-chief of the Mamma MIA! cancer magazine and Prof. Dr. Markus Kosch, global head of immunotherapies and lung cancer at Pfizer, and Peter Albiez, CEO of Pfizer Germany since March 2015.
07.06.2021
Heart failure, which affects around 1.8 million people in Germany and is also one of the leading causes of death, presents a major problem, but also an almost equally significant opportunity: This disease often progresses without symptoms in its early stages, but can be diagnosed early using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). If only MRI were accessible to everyone. In metropolitan areas and especially in large cities, this is the case, but in rural regions, the necessary diagnostic equipment and specialized physicians are often lacking. This is set to change: A project funded by the Innovation Fund with seven million euros will test a care model for the early detection of asymptomatic heart failure in the population in Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania – as a "blueprint for similar regions," as Prof. Dr. Sebastian Ulrich Kelle, Senior Physician at the Department of Internal Medicine – Cardiology at the German Heart Center Berlin (DHZB), explains. The goal of the HeartCheck project is not only to diagnose affected patients as early as possible, but also to initiate appropriate measures for therapy and minimizing risk factors as quickly as possible. This will be achieved, among other things, through the coordinated use of state-of-the-art technology and telemedicine.