NICE issues strict new guidelines
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has issued strict new guidelines on safe nurse staffing levels to all hospitals. Report: Mark Nicholls
Staff management
Generation Y in hospitals today
Could the widely predicted shortage of qualified staff in German hospitals soon lead to tough competition for members of Generation Y, ultimately resulting in a change in hospital structures and a revolution in the country’s total healthcare system? Perhaps. EH spoke with Professor Christian Schmidt, Medical Director and Head of the Board at Rostock University Hospital, and with consultant…
How to overcome future staff shortages
The Medica Education Conference has been realigned and also tackles current issues from the worlds of politics and management, amongst others in a symposium on occupational and educational politics. In this context, Professor Ulrich Montgomery, President of the German Medical Association, will speak about the next generation of medical staff under the heading ‘Calling, a profession or a job?’…
Computer-assisted coding
Every hospital does it, but how accurately and consistently coding is done has a major effect on the quality of treatment and also on the bottom line. Traditionally so-called ‘coders’ determine which code to apply for a specific medical service.‘ Report: Cornelia Wels-Maug
Patients pay the price of over-crowding
The medical departments of Danish hospitals routinely function at 100 percent in-patient bed capacity. Is this situation a factor of productivity and efficiency or a situation to be concerned about? Is there any clinical impact on patients admitted to such a crowded hospital? Report: Cynthia E Keen
Disaster medicine is not for perfectionists
The Ebola epidemic in West Africa, war in Syria, typhoon in the Philippines – over and over, German doctors are among those deployed to help. We interviewed Dr Johannes Schad, Medical Director of the Foundation of the German Institute for Disaster Medicine, about his direct experiences on the ground at the worst of times. Interview: Sascha Keutel
When helpers need help
Violence from patients or their relatives is no longer unusual in hospitals, with A&E doctors and nurses particularly affected, as confirmed in the recent study Violence against Staff in the A&E Department.
Aggression in hospitals
A receptionist threatened with a butcher’s knife in Bourgoin-Jallieu (Isère); gunshots in an emergency unit in Delafontaine, at Saint-Denis, near Paris; a nurse wounded with a knife in a Marseille hospital – three separate incidents in just one week last August brought into sharpe focus what has become a worrying phenomenon.
National Health Service management under scrutiny
UK retail ‘star’ to examine the healthcare sector. Sweet Valentine’s Day, when the government’s Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt described Sir Stuart Rose, former Executive Chairman (2004-2011) of the British fashion, food and furnishings chain stores Marks & Spencer (M&S) as ‘…one of the country’s most inspirational leaders’.
Russia: Scanners plentiful but radiologists too scant
However, investments in equipment and advanced training are attracting medical students, John Brosky reports
Patient logistics drive hospital construction
Until recently, hospitals were constructed the way they had been built through centuries. Today, however, hospital design is shifting towards patient logistics, opening up very new perspectives.
Despite population decrease, in 2020 cancer case will increase
In the country’s first scientific study to correlate the demographic changes and frequency of tumorous diseases, demographic changes have led scientists to forecast a significant increase in the number of cancerous diseases in coming years.
Decubitus ulcers
After acknowledging that too many patients were developing hospital-acquired decubitus ulcers (also known as pressure ulcers or bedsores), staff at England’s Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust adopted a zero tolerance approach and prioritised action against bedsore development, which has resulted in a dramatic decrease in cases.
Too many tumour boards?
Multidisciplinary tumour boards (MDTs) are widespread in the Netherlands, and ‘they tend to be proliferating lately,’ according to Professor Folkert van Kemenade, Chair of the Pathology department at the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam.
Interview • Focus: Healthcare Mobility
The dark side of healthcare mobility
Professional mobility has always been high on the EU agenda. But what are the impacts on the medical sector, if physicians and nurses leave their countries en masse? Daniela Zimmermann asked Günter Danner, Associate Director of the European Representation of the German Social Insurance in Brussels
News • Healthcare Mobility
Spanish doctors and nurses emigrate for work
From January 2008 till the end of 2012 around 400,000 Spaniards decided to emigrate to find work, Eduardo de la Sota reports
Article • Focus: Healthcare Mobility
France: Immigrant medics steadily increase
The number of medical practitioners in France is 216,000, among which 17,835 were trained elsewhere, representing almost 10% of the total, according to the Centre National de l’Ordre des Médecins (CNOM), which registers doctors in practice.
Germany: Promised Land for Spanish medics?
While German medics leave the country in search of better conditions, foreigners fill the gaps. Spain, with its troubled economy, provides a major source.
Tumour boards cause staff problems
About 20 years ago the first tumour boards were set up in Germany. Initiated and led by surgeons, they not only invited oncologists, radiotherapists and radiologists to conferences but also, increasingly often, pathologists.
Violence in the hospital
Aggression and violence towards hospital staff by patients and their relatives and visitors alike is an under-reported and an under-discussed issue. A French webside wants to inform employees how they can prevent and react on aggressions.
Re-evaluating the multidisciplinary approach to cancer care
A 2012 study analysing the care of cancer patients in the USA in 138 Veterans’ Administration hospitals (pub: Journal of the National Cancer Institute) questions the effectiveness of tumour board review. The study measured effectiveness by comparing the presence of tumour review boards with stage-specific quality of care and patient outcomes.
Hygiene: Fighting infections
The motive was clear. Lowering Germany’s comparatively high nosocomial infection rate – the reason for an amendment to the Hygiene Act passed in 2011 – called for improved hygiene management within the hospitals.
Ambulatory surgery
Massive and increasing cost pressure urges many hospitals to look for alternatives to expensive in-patient surgery.
To survive radiologists must become visible and valued
Radiologists work in dark, strange places often hidden in the basement of hospitals. Few doctors or medical staff visit these labyrinths, and for good reason.
Rogue Dutch doctor prompts calls for EU early warning system
There are too many loopholes that allow bad or fraudulent physicians to beat the system.