Original article
Over the past 25 years, the quality of care for birthing women has continually improved, as measured by infant and maternal mortality. Hospitals are the main contributors to this. Between 1999 and 2017, an average of 98.4 % children were delivered in hospitals2. During the same period, the number of clinics with specialist departments for gynecology and obstetrics (hereinafter referred to as maternity clinics) has declined significantly throughout Germany1. The observed improvement in quality is causally related to this increasing concentration of births in fewer and fewer clinics and manifested itself in 2006 at the latest with the division of these clinics into 4 levels of care (perinatal center level 1, perinatal center level 2, clinic with perinatal center and maternity clinic). Depending on the level of care, the clinics differ in their personnel and structural requirements in order to ensure a high quality of care for women giving birth3. There are 163 level 1 perinatal centers and 49 level 24 perinatal centers across Germany. The focus is particularly on the risks associated with premature births. After birth, the premature baby is usually examined and treated in the incubator in the intensive care unit, particularly with regard to the possible incomplete development of various organs, for which the perinatal centers are prepared. After all, in 2016, 8.6% of children were born before the 37th week of pregnancy5.
28.07.2020
The more differentiated the services in a health system, the more important it is to have higher-level coordination. Care and case management concepts have existed for over 20 years to provide high-quality, needs-based health care. However, they have not yet been widely adopted into standard care. The form of care is tested and systematically evaluated in a variety of model projects. Is the time ripe for a standard benefit claim?
28.07.2020
Two telemedicine programs from Bavaria are leaders in home monitoring services for chronically ill patients. Both “Cordiva” (Curaplan Heart Plus) and the more recent program “mecor” (Care4Cardio) were developed by Dr. Josef Leiter and his colleagues developed it. “Monitor Health Services Research” spoke to Dr. Head, founding partner of Health Care Systems GmbH (HCSG), about the background and options resulting from the PDSG.
28.07.2020
The long-awaited law for the protection of electronic patient data in the telematics infrastructure - Patient Data Protection Act for short or even shorter PDSG - is quite something. This means that “digitization should finally arrive in patients’ everyday lives,” as Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn explained at the second and third (and therefore final) consultation in the Bundestag. After decades of debate, this means that digital offers such as e-prescriptions and electronic patient files (including vaccination certificates, maternity records, U-booklets for children and dental bonus books) can be used, and specialist referrals can also be transmitted digitally. The law, which is expected to come into force in the fall and does not require approval by the Federal Council, regulates much more: On the one hand, every insured person will in future be able to voluntarily make their health data available to medical research. And secondly, it was made clear almost in passing that “information from health insurance companies about life-saving care is not advertising,” as the Munich family doctor and CDU/CSU member of the Bundestag Stephan Nikolaus Pilsinger emphasized in his speech, which has so far been the application of the law against unfair treatment Competition (UWG) failed (see MVF 03/20).
28.07.2020
Prof. Dr. med. Reinhard Busse, Professor of Healthcare Management at the Faculty of Economics and Management at the Technical University of Berlin, has been one of the most prominent German healthcare researchers for years, even more so when it comes to the international context. When he took over the congress presidency of the 19th DKVF last year, which takes place at the end of September this year, there was still no trace of Covid-19 on the horizon.
28.07.2020
With an increase of 5.7% to 46.7 billion euros in the overall market, the trend towards higher sales of statutory health insurance (GKV) for medicines continues more strongly than in previous years. This is one of the central results of the GKV drug market report published annually since 1985 by the AOK Scientific Institute (WIdO).
28.07.2020
A decade ago, on July 1, 2010, care began in Baden-Württemberg in the first AOK specialist contract for the field of cardiology. There are now over 2,800 specialists and psychotherapists from 12 specialist areas taking part in a total of seven contracts. Since 2013, AOK Baden-Württemberg has also been offering its specialist doctor program together with Bosch BKK. Together with the contract for family doctor-centered care (HZV), the selective contracts embody a unique, structured full care outside the KV system, AOK Baden-Württemberg is convinced. Modern working conditions without budgeting for medical fees and more consultation time would enable doctors to provide comprehensive and demonstrably better care for the insured. Scientific evaluations have also shown that patients with chronic heart failure or coronary heart disease actually live longer than with standard care.
28.07.2020
Since the first infections with the novel coronavirus appeared in China at the end of December, it has spread almost worldwide within just a few weeks. Like almost all industries in Germany, the healthcare market is also affected by the significant effects of the corona pandemic. Media attention, recommendations from scientific institutions, political orders and the spread of false information significantly influence the ups and downs in the market and are presented in excerpts in the following article.
25.05.2020
On May 6, 2020, the federal-state conference to contain the Covid-19 pandemic decided “that in districts or independent cities with a cumulative total of more than 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants within the last 7 days, a consistent restriction concept should be implemented immediately, including the “The relevant state authorities must be implemented”. Against this background, the Central Institute for Statutory Health Insurance (Zi) has developed country-specific key figures to control the course of the pandemic.
25.05.2020
On behalf of the Interdisciplinary Center for Health Literacy Research at Bielefeld University and the Department of Public Health and Education at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, the Allensbach Institute for Demoscopy conducted an online representative cross-section of the German population between March 31 and April 7, 2020 1,000 people aged 16 and over surveyed online. The focus is on the health literacy of the population, which involves assessing how well citizens are able to find and understand information about the coronavirus pandemic, make assessments on this basis and adapt their own behavior accordingly. The study paints an overall positive picture: The vast majority of the population feels well or even very well informed about the coronavirus, across gender differences, age groups and educational levels. Only ten percent of those surveyed said that they felt less well informed or not well informed at all. This result is probably due to the decisions of the political actors and the measures of the official institutions, which are generally perceived as understandable and useful.