Patient-Oriented Research

Patients with chronic diseases and disabled people are often treated by a number of different institutions. The services provided by these institutions are financed by different social insurance agencies. Nevertheless, research in the past focused mainly on isolated areas. To change this, the Federal Government and the social insurance agencies established a new alliance for health care research in 2006.

For the first time, funds are available for medical, rehabilitative and cross-sectoral questions. Partners are the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Federal Ministry of Health, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, the Deutsche Rentenversicherung (German pension fund), the organizations of the statutory health insurance funds at federal level and the Verband der privaten Krankenversicherung e.V (association of private health insurance funds). All in all, about 21 million Euro will be available until 2014. This is a unique funding initiative in Germany. It establishes research oriented comprehensive care. The patient is given centre stage in research under the funding priorities "Chronic Diseases" and "Patient Orientation".

Patient orientation is meeting with huge interest

The funding priority on patient-oriented research is meeting with great response. A total of approximately 650 outline proposals were submitted in the course of two funding phases. This unusually high number of ideas for projects demonstrates the great interest in this topic and the enormous potential for innovation that can currently be observed in patient orientation in both science and medical care. Of the numerous applications, 41 projects were funded during the first funding phase (2007 to 2011) and 36 in the second funding phase (2011 to 2014).

More and more, chronic diseases are determining the situation in the healthcare sector. This is primarily due to demographic developments and medical progress. Complex courses of disease represent new challenges for curative and rehabilitative care. As a consequence, there is a growing need for consistent patient and/or user orientation.

A patient-oriented approach to caring for patients with chronic diseases must pursue a two-tiered approach:

• On the one hand, the orientation of care systems, health-care providers and services towards individual patient needs.
• On the other hand, patient orientation also means care structures which support the self-management and responsibility of patients. Targeted patient information and efficient training programmes for patients with chronic diseases are important topics.

This is increasingly taken into account in the healthcare system. Funding gives science an opportunity to test the best concepts in everyday use as to their impact and effectiveness.

Among other things, scientists are looking into ways to evaluate training concepts for rehabilitation, innovative patient information schemes in hospitals, and how to integrate the wishes of patients into the work of general practitioners. Numerous projects are also dealing with patient-oriented healthcare which overcomes the barriers between and links the different care sectors. The "Patient-oriented Research" funding priority thus contributes to a more effective and clearer presentation of the complex care system for patients with chronic diseases. Patients are more actively involved in their own health care.