Reform of the hospital sector Reduce the number of beds?

Federal Health Minister wants to check the number of hospital beds

09/04/2014

Numerous clinics in Germany are struggling with financial difficulties, not least because they are following a massive investment backlog, which is also attributable to underfunding by the responsible federal states. The Federal Minister of Health Hermann Gröhe (CDU) has now in an interview with the „South German newspaper“ (SZ) announced that the planned hospital reform will address a large number of problems in the hospital sector.

The Federal Minister of Health made it clear that a lot has to be done in hospitals to safeguard patient care in the long term, while at the same time keeping costs under control. Although the clinics have been able to register a significant increase in the allocations from the health insurance companies in recent years, this was not enough to protect them from financial difficulties. Last year, the president of the German Hospital Society (DKG), Alfred Dänzer, had already declared that „The situation of hospitals is increasingly becoming a problem of national importance.“

Almost half of the clinics with losses?
According to the DKG, many hospitals could not even pay for the increase in costs and wage increases from the legally capped supply prices. Since 2006, collective wages have risen by just under 16 percent, but the remuneration for hospital services has only been raised by 8.7 percent, the DKG reported. According to the information provided by the umbrella organization of hospital providers, around 40 percent of hospitals lost out in 2012, and in 2013, almost half of the hospitals were probably affected.

More than 110,000 hospital beds too much?
In the current interview, Hermann Gröhe also pointed to the structural problems that he believes exist in the hospital sector. For example, on an annual average, only 77 percent of hospital beds are occupied. With 501,000 hospital beds this corresponds to a vacancy of around 113,000 beds. This raises the question of whether actually so many hospital beds are needed for patient care or not „perhaps a reduction or conversion of extra beds makes more sense“ would be explained to Gröhe „SZ“. While this point will certainly lead to some discussions with the clinics, the DKG and the Federal Minister of Health are quite unanimous in other respects. For example, both the DKG and Gröhe of the federal states demand that they fulfill their obligation to provide the investment funds for the hospital buildings.

Better information required for patients
Another proposal, which according to Gröhe is to be discussed in the framework of the commission of representatives of federal and state governments for the reform of the hospital sector from 16 April, is the demand for more comprehensive information on the range of services and the quality of service. Patients should receive information that they did not need a medical or law degree to understand, emphasized the Federal Minister of Health. The reports of the clinics need to be clearer and more precise. In addition, he could imagine paying the clinics for the quality of the services, although the introduction of suitable criteria for quality assessment has caused the experts headaches for years - so far without any applicable result. (Fp)

Picture: Rainer Sturm