Berlin/Germany. Health insurance funds, hospitals, doctors and companies are increasing their co-operation on new healthcare models in order to improve patient care, optimise treatment processes and introduce innovative medical technologies more speedily. This was the result of the 5th BVMed Innovation Congress in Berlin, attended by over 150 participants. Health insurance funds, doctors, medical staff and scientists presented new co-operative healthcare concepts involving modern medical technologies.

Above all, the new healthcare concepts focused on integrated care contracts (Integrierte Versorgung - IV), which, in the view of all delegates, offer great opportunities and are certain to dramatically change the German healthcare system. “By launching innovative model plans, we can introduce stimuli into the system,” said Bernd Beyrle from the Hamburg based Techniker Krankenkasse (TK - technologists’ health insurance fund).

“Disease management programmes (DMPs) and integrated care concepts will help to make breakthroughs in quality assured medicine. This is because you can only make things happen in terms of increasing quality of care, if money is also channelled down the quality assurance route,” said Wilfried Jacobs, chairman of the AOK Rhineland. In Jacob’s opinion, the fundamental question of each new model project is: “Of what use is it to patients?” The AOK chairman appealed to medical technology companies to inform health insurance funds about innovations “in the pipeline” as early as possible.

During the panel discussion, Dr. Friedhelm Bartels, a member of the BVMed board, called on health insurance funds “to close ranks” when it came to push-starting the financing of new plans for the introduction of medical technology innovations. He said that it made no sense for each health insurance fund to approach the subject differently. However, he added that it was certain that new technologies could not be introduced without an increase to costs. “On the one hand, we are talking about the quality of procedures, but on the other, products or procedures provided by companies or doctors are not available for free.”

Among the examples for new care concepts and structures were: a plan from the AOK Rhineland for breast cancer diagnosis with a vacuum biopsy; a nation-wide care model with drug-eluting stents from the healt insurance fund DAK; new treatment concepts for incontinence and woundcare within the framework of integrated care models; and the use of telemedicine for pacemaker and implanted defibrillator therapies.

Link: Pictures from the conference at www.bvmed.de (Pictures - Events)

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