Innovation potential in the healthcare industry
09.11.2023 13:43
Dr. Bernadette Klapper, Federal Managing Director of the German Professional Association for Nursing Professions (DBfK), discussed the innovation potential of the healthcare industry for a changing society in a workshop discussion with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on November 7, 2023. The conversation is part of the “Workshop of Change” series, as part of which the Federal President’s visit to Siemens Healthineers AG in Erlangen took place.
The workshop discussion was about exploring possibilities of how technological change in healthcare can be achieved and how the healthcare system can be restructured to be sustainable and future-proof.
“Care will play a central role in the changing society, that was clear to everyone,” reports Bernadette Klapper, DBfK Federal Managing Director. “While the skills shortage is increasing, we are dealing with an aging, fragmented society. People are increasingly living alone, in rural areas young people are moving away and older people are staying in place. An answer must be found.”
The working group on demographic change, whose results Klapper presented to the Federal President, agreed that the potential of prevention must be raised and that care, digitalization and civil society must be linked from a life course perspective in order to meet the challenge. “From our point of view, the best form of this is provided by primary care centers that are well positioned digitally, in which community health nurses work and which are well networked with voluntary structures,” says Klapper.
“In care practice, especially in outpatient care, there must be room for creative solutions. With the current level of regulation, the diversity of tasks cannot be managed and new digital options cannot be put into practice with the necessary speed,” Klapper concluded.