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In 2016, the Bertelsmann Foundation published a representative study in which 91 percent of those surveyed were in favor of medical practices, hospitals and care facilities being required by law to clearly disclose their quality (Bertelsmann Foundation, 2016). This clear result shows that citizens demand accountability from healthcare providers about the quality of their work, regardless of what other possible positive effects may come with quality transparency. These effects are diverse and work on different levels (see Fig. 1). The publication of quality data is intended to stimulate quality competition by directly motivating service providers to improve quality - on their own professional initiative and/or based on mutual observation. This is not only shown by international studies (Kumpunen, Trigg & Rodrigues, 2014); The publication of quality reports by hospitals, which has been legally required since 2005 (Section 136b Paragraph 1 No. 3 SGB V), has also led to improvements in many of the published indicators (IQTIG, 2019). But transparency also ensures that patients are supported in their choices. Furthermore, performance and quality data can be used as a basis for the control and planning of provider structures in the healthcare system. However, this is not actually happening yet.
01.02.2021
Rare diseases form a heterogeneous group of mostly complex clinical pictures. They often take a chronic course, accompanied by disability and/or reduced life expectancy, and often lead to symptoms as early as childhood. About 80% of the rare diseases are genetic or partly caused, they are rarely curable (BMG 2019) (Orphanet 2020) (Fig. 1). Due to the rare occurrence of familial hypophosphatemic rickets - including XLH - and the insufficient data in Germany, the aim of this health services research was to collect epidemiological data and to present the health care situation and pharmacoepidemiology of patients with a confirmed E83.30 ICD-10 diagnosis. For the retrospective analyses, routine data and billing data from statutory health insurance (GKV) were used, which are becoming increasingly important in health services research (Neubauer et al. 2014).
01.02.2021
„Gesundheit 2025 – 2 x 5 Thesen und Forderungen“ nennt ein Autoren-Sextett1 ein in einem Pre-Release der Medizinisch Wissenschaftlichen Verlagsgesellschaft (MWV) Ende 2020 erschienenes Whitepaper mit dem Titel „Corona Future Management“2. Ihrer persönlichen Ansicht nach hat das Gesundheitssystem in Deutschland unter Beweis gestellt, dass es im Krisenfall eine hohe Koordinierungs- und Veränderungsdynamik entfalten könne. Nun werde die Aufgabe für die Zukunft sein, diese „neu gelebte Schnelligkeit und Pragmatismus auch in Zukunft – außerhalb von Krisenzeiten – zu bewahren.“
01.02.2021
„"The symptom that prompted a user to see a doctor or use the Ada app doesn't, in itself, determine how urgently medical help is needed." This statement from the interview with Dr. Andreas Gilsdorf is particularly relevant in times of COVID-19: A cough and runny nose usually indicate a flu-like infection, but only usually. A good doctor can provide more precise information after a more detailed medical history, but—if, as in some countries, one isn't readily available—an app like Ada Health can also help. According to Gilsdorf, Ada Health "introduces a kind of care triage based on a probability level as well as the type and severity of the reported symptoms.".
01.02.2021
In an open-access article published in the BMJ's Evidence-Based Medicine journal, titled "From publication bias to lost in information: why we need a central public portal for clinical trial data," two IQWiG employees, Beate Wieseler and Natalie McGauran, call for a central public portal for clinical trial data. The authors state that this should be understood as "a proposal to ensure efficient and complete access to clinical trial data.".
01.02.2021
Anyone who hears or reads the name OptiMedis automatically thinks of Dr. h.c. Helmut Hildebrandt, the co-founder of the healthcare management, analytics, and research company. For years, he has been a tireless advocate, indeed a champion, of cross-sectoral care models, and the company now encompasses far more than just the initial "Healthy Kinzig Valley" project. However, the fact that OptiMedis does much more—particularly in healthcare research—is not yet widely known. Dr. Oliver Gröne, PhD MSc, Deputy CEO of OptiMedis AG, describes the background and key areas of focus. He is responsible for Analytics, Research & Innovation, and Organization.
01.02.2021
At the online conference „Structural Migration through Complex Intervention“ organized by IGiB StimMT at the end of last year, three workshops addressed the following topics: the „Economic Dimensions of Outpatient Care“ (Part 1, MVF 06/20), the „Evaluation of Complex Interventions“ (to be published in MVF 02/21), and the „Advantages and Drawbacks of Managing Large-Scale Innovation Fund Projects.“ This part of the report trilogy focuses on this latter topic.
01.02.2021
In the cover interview with "Monitor Versorgungsforschung" (Health Services Research Monitor), Prof. Dr. Jörg Meerpohl, Director of Cochrane Germany, describes how Cochrane, like the entire methodology community, is constantly evolving. The GRADE approach plays a key role in this development, primarily used in systematic reviews to assess the best available evidence for a given outcome. Meerpohl and his team are also working on this approach in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, reviewing, structuring, and evaluating the available study evidence. Here, the entire community—including Cochrane—needs and wants to become faster than before, because, as Meerpohl states, "the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the focus, and that's a good thing.".
01.02.2021
The corona pandemic has been the dominant topic for the German healthcare system since the beginning of 2020. Data bases such as registers and reporting procedures had to be created for health care research issues. Alternatively, the routine data collected on a legal basis can be used to gain insights into health care during the pandemic. For this purpose, the Quality Indicators for Church Hospitals – QKK eV association defined 18 key figures on Covid-19 and used them for evaluations of the first half of 2020. These provide an overview of the care of affected patients in small and medium-sized church-run hospitals. The proportion of patients with Covid-19 among all inpatient treatment cases in the period examined was 0.47%. Of these patients, 17.77% died in hospital. Around 30% of patients with Covid-19 were treated in intensive care units, and a fifth of patients with Covid-19 were ventilated. This means that smaller and medium-sized hospitals were also widely affected by the corona pandemic. The hospitals had to provide maximum therapy options for these patients. Compared to other studies, differences emerged in which structural conditions may be important.
07.12.2020
The significantly increasing proportion of positive test results to now over 2.5% indicates that the epidemic has spread widely among the population. As the group of authors expressed in its ad hoc statement on the occasion of the results of the Chancellor/Prime Minister Conference on October 14, 2020, the political leadership would have been called upon, on the one hand, to begin a discussion process with positive connotations instead of an ever-perpetuated threat scenario, how general prevention measures can be combined with specific measures and, on the other hand, what an adequate testing strategy should look like. All of this with the aim of achieving specific prevention as the basis for “stable control” of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic.