Disease interception

F. Jessen | C. Bug

Disease Interception – Implications of early diagnosis and disease interruption for medicine and society

“The great opportunity of the future,” says Prof. Dr. Frank Jessen, Director of the Clinic and Polyclinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University Hospital of Cologne, the model of Disease Interception. Many authors and interlocutors who speak in the specialist book of the same name – published in the “Monitor Healthcare Research” (MVF) series – find similarly strong comparisons. “A bold and hopeful vision,” for example, is what MVF editor Prof. Dr. Reinhold Roski in his editorial describes this “promising concept” (quote from Prof. Dr. Dr. Eva Winkler, senior physician at the National Center for Tumor Diseases and head of the research focus “Ethics and patient orientation in oncology), which “represents the most fervent wish of all affected patients and Patients” (Dr. Martin Danner, BAG) could make health instead of illness come true. Above all, because this “bet on a better future” (Wasem) has the potential to become “an established repair shop after centuries of medicine,” as Prof. Dr. Jochen A. Werner, Medical Director and Chairman of the Board of the Essen University Medical Center, states in his contribution that he is “opening a new chapter”.

>> The specialist book “Disease Interception” brings together original scientific articles and interviews with opinion leaders from politics and the health insurance sector to form a current picture of knowledge and sentiment. It shows what evidence there is already for this topic today, according to co-editor Dr. Christoph Bug, Medical Director and Managing Director of the pharmaceutical company Janssen Germany, which supported the creation of this publication - is located “at the interface between medical vision and concrete research and development”. In interviews with politicians and representatives of the cash register, we will also find out how self-administration, politics and society can deal with this system innovation that is coming to us sooner or later. Or must, if you follow MP Michael Hennrich, who says: “If you assume that the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease will triple worldwide by 2050, we cannot close our eyes to an opportunity like Disease Interception.”
But before that, as Franz Knieps, board member of the BKK umbrella organization, who was state secretary in the Federal Ministry of Health for eight years under Ulla Schmidt, advises, a “social discourse must be conducted” in order to answer important questions: “What should our future look like?”, “How Do we want to shape this?", "What are the best framework conditions?", "How much do we want to spend on it?" and "Do we want to accelerate or slow down the process?" In Knieps' opinion, all of these questions require a social and political consensus.
But this will not be as easy to achieve as Prof. Dr. Jürgen Wasem, holder of the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach Endowed Chair for Medical Management at the University of Duisburg-Essen, explains that, in his opinion, there is no way around using the health economics toolbox that has so far been established in the statutory health insurance system in Germany (see p. 8 ) to expand.
This would bring us closer to the discussion about quality-adjusted life years (QALY), which has so far only been conducted very hesitantly in Germany - if at all. In Wasem's opinion, however, Disease Interception now offers an opportunity to reflect on this measure, which has long been used in Anglo-Saxon countries and in international health economics, and to question “whether health-economic modeling such as QALY really has to continue to lead a shadowy existence here may". But this is primarily a political decision, which could, and perhaps should, be driven forward by society. If she wanted it. Knieps describes the necessary discussion of this vision as a “structure-softening” one that is “very good for our society and especially the health system” because a model such as that of Disease Interception can be used to discuss “where society wants to develop”. <<

ISBN 978-3-9814519-6-2, hardcover with thread binding, 244 pages, 4 colors, 2019.