In order to improve the doctor-patient dialogue, the Federal Ministry of Health has funded the development of a model curriculum “Communication in Medicine” as part of the National Cancer Plan, which teaches students throughout their medical studies skills to explain knowledge about diagnosis and therapy in a comprehensible way, to respond to the questions of the patient and his relatives and to accompany them in the therapy. A corresponding model curriculum for nursing is currently being developed.
In addition, the Independent Patient Advice Service Germany (UPD) was expanded and strengthened by increasing the annual available funding from 5.2 to 9 million euros. The UPD offers independent and free advice on health and health law issues. This means that patients have access to knowledgeable contacts outside of medical treatment.
The Hospital Structure Act ensures that patients will be able to find out more about the quality of hospitals in the future. In the future, hospital quality reports will contain a section that provides patients with understandable information, particularly on patient safety, compliance with hygiene standards and staffing levels in specialist departments. In plain language, this means that patients will be able to compare the quality of hospitals more easily.
In addition, the Federal Ministry of Health commissioned the Institute for Quality and Efficiency to develop a concept for a national health portal by 2018. The portal aims to bring together trustworthy, scientifically proven and independent health information.
Because the topic of patient safety is also of international importance and patients all over the world need the certainty that they are being cared for properly and safely, Federal Minister of Health Hermann Gröhe together with his British counterpart Jeremy Hunt attended the “Global Ministerial Summit on Patient Safety” invited. Based on this, Federal Minister of Health Gröhe is campaigning at the World Health Organization for September 17 to be included in the list of international days of action by the United Nations (UN) and the WHO and has already won numerous countries to support this proposal.