Scandinavian expertise for German hospitals

Ahr has been a healthcare service provider for 30 years. Hospitel has run patient hotels in Denmark and Sweden for over a decade. ‘In Scandinavia, patients have been successfully cared for in a hotel-like environment since the introduction of the DRGs ten years ago,’ Dr Uwe K Preusker, Hospitel’s managing director pointed out, adding that Hospitel partners have run projects at the University Clinic in Odense, Denmark and the Karlstad Hospital in Sweden for ten years.

Ahr provides ward service and catering, home economics and cleaning for 290 hospitals and nursing homes in Germany. The firm reports that its unique selling point is the combination of individual services as a complete hotel service for patients. ‘Ahr increasingly provides a level of gastronomic and home-economic service to hospitals that is comparable with that found in hotels,’ said Franz-Josef Richter, Abbakus managing director and head of product development at Ahr. ‘With Abbakus, we hope to open the first unit in the spring.’

The firm is targeting German hospitals that have at least 200 beds, and Abbakus is currently in negotiation with several hospitals, with contracts for the first few projects to be signed shortly. In all, the company hopes to open ten hotel-wards in this country over the next two years.
The concept is aimed at patients who require low-level care, independent of whether they have statutory medical insurance or are privately insured. Transferring hotel-like structures into a hospital requires knowledge of the specific demands in dealing with patients and of team-structures on wards. Both partners are experienced in hospital management, they point out. ‘Abbakus will carry out all the investments,’ said Markus Ahr, managing partner of Ahr. ‘Both partner companies will then recover their costs by running these new ventures over the long term; so Abbakus operates as a public/private partnership within the healthcare system.’

23.05.2006

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