Straub demands more outpatient treatment from the hospitals

About 10% of the approximately 2.000 German hospitals will have to close

Wuppertal/Berlin – More outpatient treatment at hospitals is demanded by the chief on Germany’s largest health insurer.  The CEO of Bramer GEK, Christopher Straub, warned on Monday the hospitals in Wuppertal, to use the economic pressure in order to break up old structures.

“It is not, as claimed, a closure of clinics, it underlines the idea of more outpatient care services at clinics,” said Straub. Currently there are about 2.000 hospitals in Germany.

Straub had been previously cited by the world with the words: “There are too many hospitals and especially too many hospital beds.” Germany has structures that are “larger and more expensive than in other countries.”

In a statement, Straub, pointed out that in his opinion, much more frequently than before, “the interdisciplinary, personnel and technical infrastructure of the hospitals should be used for short inpatient and outpatient care”. Doctors should be able to provide both outpatient and inpatient care.

“An integration of outpatient and inpatient care services is the best way to gain competitive advantage in the market”, said Straub. Nowadays more and more treatments could be performed faster and gentler on an outpatient basis.

Saving measures to maintain the hospital sector

In the interview, Straub also spoke out against the hospitals to adopt the savings contribution from the health care reform. “It is not advisable to take back the austerity measures in the hospitals, only to simply maintain expensive hospital structures.”

The German Hospital Federation had earlier called out to the federal government to relax the austerity package. The Chief Executive Georg Baum said that “the billions of surpluses in the Health Fund and in the national health insurance agency should dissolve the hospitals anger over the continuation of the austerity measures at the expense of about 600 million Euros in 2012.” Cost containment will continue despite the surplus of billions of euros and despite the apparent problems of the hospitals.

According to the Hospital Rating Report 2011 to 2020, presumably without countermeasures currently about 10% of the approximately 2.000 German hospitals will have to close. The economy will be especially hard on smaller hospitals in administration by the local authorities.  The rural areas will be particularly affected.

Source of the article here: http://www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/48589