Original article
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.
07.06.2021
What opportunities does digitalization offer for improving medical care? What beneficial solutions already exist, and how are they perceived by doctors and patients? Using diabetes as an example, the Digitalization and Technology Report (DUT), a truly unique project combining primary data collection and analysis of key topics, not only depicts the status quo but also aims to offer hope, alleviate anxieties, and highlight problem areas. The DUT Report is edited by Professors Dr. Bernhard Kulzer and Dr. Lutz Heinemann, and sponsored and co-initiated by the pharmaceutical company Berlin-Chemie, which is represented in an interview with "Monitor Versorgungsforschung" by Michael Bollessen and Dr. Anja Selig.
07.06.2021
Commentary by Dr. Dr. Klaus Piwernetz (medimaxx health management GmbH, Munich) and Univ.-Prof. Dr. Dr. hc Edmund A. M. Neugebauer (President of the Brandenburg Medical School)
07.06.2021
Comment by Dr. PH Dipl.-Stat. Carsten Schwenke (SCO:SSiS Statistical Consulting, Berlin)
07.06.2021
The COVID-19 crisis has not only exposed the causes of supply disruptions for system-critical medical devices and pharmaceuticals and made the consequences of the digitalization gap in the healthcare system transparent, but has also revealed, in particular, the consequences of fundamental leadership deficiencies in hospital personnel management, professional and regulatory policies, and procurement management. The pandemic has also triggered a rethinking of values, the meaning and purpose of work content and behavioral norms, as well as the role and significance of "bedside professionals" in society. There is an urgent need for action on the part of policymakers, unions, associations, and hospital managers to make working conditions for "bedside professionals" more family-friendly and to sustainably improve their remuneration. Likewise, the government must create incentives for building domestic reserve production capacities for system-critical medical devices and pharmaceuticals, establish a value-based tendering process, prepare a "National Buying Center for Crisis Situations," and shorten global supply chains to facilitate their management and increase security of supply.
07.06.2021
Since the establishment of the Charité Health Services Research Congresses, health services research at Charité, an institution previously heavily focused on basic research—particularly in the field of neuroscience—has become not just a visible part, but a "very visible component of the research strategy at Charité," as Prof. Dr. Axel R. Pries (Dean of Charité) stated in his welcoming address for the 2021 congress (see MVF 02/21). These congresses are organized by the Charité Health Services Research Platform, which in turn originated from an initiative of the Institute of Medical Sociology and Rehabilitation Science (IMSR), the Institute of General Practice, the Institute of Public Health, and the Department of Emergency and Acute Medicine (CCM/CVK) (see MVF 01/20). The increasing importance of health services research for Charité is demonstrated by no fewer than five new professorships in this field.
07.06.2021
The group of authors supplements the statements from theses 4 and 6.1 with a third ad hoc statement on intensive care. In correction of the version from May 16, 2021, in Chap. 4 the numbers of patients treated in intensive care are based on the daily value, the hospitalization/intensive care ratio is corrected to the length of stay of 10 days (Table 3) and a footnote (No. 30) is added which deals with the possible explanation for the decrease in the total intensive care bed capacity by outsourcing the pediatric intensive care beds. As of: May 16, 2021, 12:00 p.m., update from May 17, 2021
07.06.2021
On the occasion of the current legislative process for the 4th Civil Protection Act, the group of authors is supplementing its previous seven theses with a second urgent ad hoc statement. “The “Emergency Brake Act” is highly problematic from a constitutional and legal policy perspective. It links the entry of z. Sometimes serious encroachments on fundamental rights are disproportionate to a politically arbitrary and uncertain “threshold value” that is unsuitable as a control value and can also be influenced by the new tests. The law shortens the legal protection, reduces it to legal actions for the control of norms or (limited) constitutional complaints and completely excludes the administrative legal process, which actually represents an indispensable legal protection for citizens for these encroachments on fundamental rights. The federalist principle is disavowed and any approach to differentiated measures to combat pandemics is excluded.