1.3 million hospital stays could be prevented
The German care system has been running at full capacity for years. But it doesn't have to be that way. According to a study by Barmer, better organization and more individual care could prevent a seven-figure number of hospital stays.
Up to 1.3 million hospital stays for people in need of care could be avoided each year if care was provided at an early stage. This is the conclusion of the Barmer care report. However, this would require greater consideration to be given to individual nursing and medical needs.
Barmer boss Christof Straub therefore called for more efficient care structures. Local, cross-sector care facilities could bring together various healthcare professions, doctors' practices and nursing services. This would allow people in sparsely populated areas in particular to receive better care and avoid inpatient stays.
According to the report, between 2017 and 2022, an average of around 280,000 patients in need of care or on the verge of needing care were treated in hospital every month. These were often cases that could be treated by a GP or in a nursing home under better medical conditions.
Almost three days longer in hospital
These include cardiac insufficiency with around 15,900 hospital cases per month and diabetes with around 4,000 cases. "With more targeted care in advance, people in need of care with such illnesses would usually not even need to be admitted to hospital," explained study author Heinz Rothgang from the University of Bremen. "But the framework conditions have to be right for this."
The experts are therefore also calling for an expansion of short-term care. This is because hospital stays are significantly longer if care has to be organized afterwards. Anyone who comes to hospital already in need of care must expect to spend up to 2.7 days longer in hospital, explained Rothgang.
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The Barmer GEK's international studies indicate that improved organization and individualized care could reduce hospital stays for conditions like diabetes, potentially preventing over a million annually. To achieve this, they suggest fostering integrated care facilities, bringing together healthcare professionals and services, particularly benefiting rural areas. The study further points out that patients with conditions like cardiac insufficiency or diabetes, when given early targeted care, often avoid hospital admission altogether, reducing their hospital stay length by almost three days if required care is organized after admission.
Source: www.ntv.de
