BGF – The Health Forum is celebrating its 15th anniversary

15.02.2017 14:31

The BGF – The Health Forum (BGF) is taking place for the 15th time. At the end of April 2017, more than 700 decision-makers and experts from the healthcare sector will meet again in Munich to exchange knowledge and experiences. Since 2003, almost 10,000 congress participants have been welcomed. This makes the BGF one of the top events in the industry. Wolfgang Zöller has been associated with the congress from the very beginning and is the patron of the congress. He says: “This forum offers the platform where you can discuss the topics of the future relating to our healthcare system in an appreciative atmosphere.”

It has been shown again and again that health comes first for many people. Of course everyone wants to stay healthy for as long as possible; this concerns the area of salutogenesis. But people also have a great need to know where they can get the best medical care if they need it and where they can grow old in dignity after a hopefully fulfilling life. This means that we should be guided by the goal of providing people with the best possible care in all our activities, which encompass the most diverse aspects of our healthcare system. Numerous topics are being discussed in the context of current developments. Prof. Dr. Andreas H. Grün, organizer of the congress in Munich, highlights five of these topics:

1. Prevention: If you see prevention as a task for society as a whole, states, municipalities, schools, daycare centers, retirement homes, sports clubs, etc. must be included. Effective prevention can only take place in people's living environments.
2. Rural supply of diagnostics and medicine: How do local people get the necessary services? Among other things, telemedicine, outpatient care, portal clinics and digitalization are valuable instruments that need to be maintained, intensified and further developed.
3. Self-determination in old age: People should be strengthened in their freedom of choice and be able to decide for themselves where and how they live in old age. The municipalities play a major role in this. Among other things, new forms of cooperation between nursing care funds and municipalities should be promoted.
4. Infrastructure: A significant proportion of German hospitals use infrastructure that dates back to the end of the 20th century. Under these conditions, modern patient care while respecting quality requirements is becoming increasingly difficult. In order to provide patient-friendly and economical services, many facilities require e.g. B. with regard to operations, there are also appropriately equipped hybrid operating rooms with adequate inlet and outlet areas. When creating such structures, there are many hurdles in the way, such as the structural implementation, which is usually only possible as part of a general renovation or a new building, or financing. In order to enable more facilities to provide gold standard medical care, industry and hospitals should work together to explore new avenues for such future investments.
5. Health campus: Both intra-sectoral and cross-sector networking are essential for high-quality medical and therapeutic care. Such a concept takes into account all acute inpatient facilities for a care region to be defined as well as the integration of upstream and downstream service provision. The latter ranges from practicing physicians to rehabilitative providers to nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Ultimately, this means creating a health campus. The guiding principle here is: “Everything under one roof, but not everything from a single source.” This will create a central contact point for patients and their relatives. All patients enter this campus, which functions like a competence center, through the same door and are guided through the entire range of healthcare services according to their needs. The patient receives individual care in the sense of patient orientation, that is, a tailor-made diagnostic and therapeutic service of the correct quality, at the right place and at the right time.

The BGF – The Health Forum deals with precisely these topics, among other things. The program is technically extensive and staffed at the highest level. Topics are:
1. System breaks, outpatient/inpatient, care models
2. Leadership, resources, change management
3. Trends, processes, care models, big data in diagnostics and therapy
4. Processes, space supply, quality
5. Pharmaceuticals: innovations, information, added value
6. Telemedicine, apps
7. Healthy employees, sleep – the engine of health
8. Self-empowerment, nursing, geriatrics
9. Logistics, processes, energy, procurement
10. Digitalization, interfaces, practical help
11. Clinic management 4.0, company health management
12. Therapy added value, networking, health services research, risk management, drug therapy safety
13. Quality, tensions in the health sectors, market consolidation
14. Digitalization, health IT, financing
15. Procurement, innovations in medical technology, supply projects, DRG system

The topics of digitalization and networking will take up a lot of space within the congress. The State Minister in the Bavarian State Ministry of Health and Care, Melanie Huml, sees this as one of the top topics: “Digitalization opens up many new treatment options for us. It creates freedom – more time for personal attention and humanity.”

Further information about the congress can be found here www.bgm.ag/kongress, registrations can be made at www.bgm.ag/kongress/registration be made.