Management prize for German hospitals
A long overdue prize finally recognises successful management teams and concepts in German hospitals: the RFH Hospital Innovation Prize, jointly sponsored by the College for Applied Sciences, Cologne, and the Institute for Healthcare Economics and Medical Care Research. With 12,500 EUR the purse is not (yet) particularly stellar, but it's the thought that counts.
During the 6th Congress of Healthcare and Economics, the RFH Hospital Innovation Prize was awarded in the Maternushaus, Cologne on 16 September. The prize honours five hospital management teams. The first prize stayed in the neighborhood: The University Hospital Cologne was chosen for the development and successful implementation of an innovative medical organisational and care structure at the Neurological Clinic and Polyclinic. The “Cologne Consultant Concept” offers a flexible, efficient and time-saving model for chronological patient admission which allows fast and efficient medical care in interdepartmental teams rather than in the traditional department-based structure.
Gereon Fink, director of the Clinic for Neurology, and assistant medical director Michael Schroeter developed this new organisational structure for the hospital physicians which breaks down department walls to allow for interdepartmental teams to care for the patients. A case management module assigns the patient to a department and in chronological order to the interns. That means one of the most time-consuming clinical processes – admission – is equitably spread over all available interns. This system, the two neurologists say, offers an incentive for speedy treatment and thus translates into increased income compared to the traditional department-based model. The project of the university hospital Cologne is exemplary, as it “opens new roads to optimised workflows and structures within hospital process management”, explained jury member Professor Riedel in his laudatio.
The second prize went to the University Hospital Center Hamburg-Eppendorf’s (UKE) psychosis center at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy for a project entitled “Integrated care for patients with psychotic conditions at UKE”. The center for people suffering from psychoses was founded by a five-member team led by Martin Lambert. The “Hamburg model” implements a care concept which is unique in Germany. It encompasses two-year treatment, primarily outpatient, and is open to patients who are covered by different health insurance policies. In-patient treatment is reduced to a minimum according to modern scientific knowledge which indicates that patients best be treated in their every-day environment by a psychiatrist.
The third prize went to a working group at the University Hospital Regensburg, led by Alfred Stockinger. The group initiated a comprehensive project to improve process management in clinical care. 200 clinical pathways were developed, including concomitant case management structures. The entire hospital and all specialised clinical departments benefit from this optimisation of the clinical workflows. The work load of the physicians was reduced by one to three hours per day and the overall structure of the physicians’ working day was improved. The time gained by these organisational and structural changes positively impacts both the quality of care and research and teaching, the Regensburg authors of the project “Process management based on clinical treatment paths and case management” report.
Brüderkrankenhaus St. Josef in Paderborn was awarded the fourth prize, and Krankenhaus Köln-Merheim received the fifth prize.
An interdisciplinary and interdepartmental panel evaluated the submitted projects. The members of the panel were among others economist Ms Irmtraud Gürkan who is commercial director of the University Hospital Heidelberg, former State Secretary Richard Zimmer, managing director of the hospital association North Rhine-Westphalia, Ms Christiane Jansen, director of NRW-Bank, and other clinical and business experts from hospitals and organisations. Co-sponsor of the award is the Ministry of Health of North Rhine-Westphalia
30.09.2008
