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Evaluating breast cancer mortality in the German mammography screening program with health insurance claims data requires the availability of claims data with information on causes of death. This work aimed to determine the proportions of successful cause-of-death linkages between the second-largest German statutory health insurance fund and three federal cancer registries and to investigate whether linked proportions differed by region, year, and age. Women aged 40-90 years whose insurance was terminated between 2006 and 2018 were included. Proportions successfully linked to the official death certificate databases of all individuals (available in one registry) and of registered cancer cases (available in three registries) were calculated. Of 150,369 women whose insurance was terminated due to death, 90.0% were linked to the database including all deceased women. Regarding the databases including only registered cancer cases, 35.9% of 150,369, 38.6% of 47,472, and 20.1% of 65,893 deceased women were linked. Linked proportions increased from 2006 to 2018 and peaked in age group 60-69 years. The data will be used for the evaluation of the German Mammography screening program. Since causes of death were not linked for all deceased women and the proportions of linkages differed by region, year, and age, claims-based algorithms will also be considered to complement claims data with causes of death.

Aim of the study: Peer support workers and recovery companions in psychiatric care represent a new professional group. The aim of this study was to explore options for classification, professional integration and appropriate remuneration for this group within the SGB V healthcare system.

Methods: Part of the ImpPeer-Psy5 project, this study provides recommendations for nationwide implementation of peer support workers in SGB V care. It is based on data from 56 interviews, supplemented by five expert interviews and a focus group, and analyzed using thematic analysis.

Results: Peer workers' services are funded and compensated inconsistently across Germany, with remuneration generally inadequate. The pay was often perceived as disconnected from the tasks and responsibilities involved, hindering the establishment of PGB as a standalone profession. Greater independence from other professions and higher classification under the TVöD pay scale are necessary.

Conclusion: Successful implementation of peer support workers requires regulated and secure funding and compensation. A national peer workers interest group would help achieve these goals. Avoiding classification in EG3 or lower is recommended.

The research project "Evaluation of quality of care in routine outpatient care for common childhood and adolescent diseases" (QualiPäd) measures the quality of care for seven common somatic and psychiatric diseases in children and adolescents based on a set of consensual and evidence-based quality indicators developed specifically for this purpose. Analyses of patient files of pediatricians, general practitioners and child and adolescent psychiatrists showed that in some cases, due to lack of information in the patient records, fullfillment of some of the quality indicators could not be measured or the degree of fulfillment of the quality indicators was found to be low. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to identify system-, physician- and patient-related factors that influence documentation in patient records as well as (non)fulfillment of quality indicators.Three specialist-specific focus group interviews were conducted with physicians (8 pediatricians, 5 general practitioners, 2 child and adolescent psychiatrists) already involved in the study. Interview guides were developed to pick up the previous results of the study and to enable discussions on the interpretation of results as well as possible influencing factors at different levels. The interviews were transcribed and content-analyzed using MAXQDA software.The following factors were identified that appeared to influence treatment, documentation, and therefore (non)fulfillment of quality indicators: Patient characteristics (e. g., age, disease burden), demands of everyday practice (e. g., time pressure), treatment continuity (e. g., cared for by several providers), preference for experiential knowledge instead of quality indicators/guidelines, and an individual approach to documentation behavior (e.g, short reports as a personal thought support). In addition, participants criticized the approach to quality measurement via indicators and patient records.The physicians we interviewed decide individually how to proceed and what to document when treating common medical conditions in children and adolescents. In some cases, this is in clear contrast to the documentation requirements for calculating quality indicators, which means that quality measurement based on patient records is only possible to a limited extent.

Introduction: The care of children and adolescents in need of care at home is exacerbated by the shortage of skilled workers in the care sector, which leads to bottlenecks in care and presents caring families with major challenges. The implementation of new care approaches in existing structures in the healthcare system is proving to be a key development task in order to provide targeted support for affected families in the future.

Methods: Qualitative explorative interview study to record the perspective of families with (seriously) ill children and adolescents on the current care situation and possible helpful support services. The sampling was criteria-driven and the analysis and evaluation was content-analytical. Respondents were given a short questionnaire to record socio-demographic characteristics.

Results: In particular, the transmission of the diagnosis, the everyday challenges and the impact on quality of life were named as stress factors by n=10 participating parents. Improved access to information, voluntary structures and central contact points as well as digital services were named as key development needs.

Conclusion: The interviews from real life and needs-oriented perspective show that there is a need to expand low-threshold care coordination services, strengthen voluntary structures and use telemedical services. Meeting these needs should enable access to specialized treatment and helpful services, especially in rural areas.

Background: The principle of "rehabilitation before care" is a principle of social law. The recommendation of the Medical Service (MD) as part of the assessment (§ 31 SGB XI) plays an important role in rehabilitation recommendations. In around 3% of its assessments, the MD recommends implementation of rehabilitation. Only every fourth to fifth recommendation is actually carried out. The aim of the study was to find out if rehabilitation recommendations are utilized and exploited.

Materials and methods: This study aimed to examine the perspective of insured persons whose recommended rehabilitation was actually carried out. After evaluating 586,228 routine data records with care assessments by the MD, 1,972 survey questionnaires were sent out in March 2023, and 1,116 analyzable questionnaires were included in the data analysis. In seven questions, the respondents were asked to retrospectively assess the overall success and satisfaction with rehabilitation procedures carried out.

Results: The evaluation of the results showed that 87% of the study participants would be ready to undergo repeat rehabilitation. The assessment of the success of rehabilitation in terms of remaining at home for a longer period of time also carried weight. On the other hand, only around 10% of rehabilitation was carried out on an outpatient basis.

Conclusions: One previously assumed reason for the low rate of patients taking advantage of recommended rehabilitation was that those in need of care had already received rehabilitation in the previous year. In this study focussing on whether recommended rehabilitation is taken advantage of, this assumption was found not to be correct. The question needs to be raised whether the strong focus in Germany on inpatient rehabilitation is up-to-date, both medically and with regard to the preferences of those entitled to rehabilitation. In contrast to inpatient rehabilitation, individual, outpatient and, if necessary, mobile rehabilitation offers might be more suitable, and these would also take into consideration issues of individual mobility and patient autonomy. The offer of different modes of rehabilitation also enables meeting the wish of those patients who prefer to have rehabilitation carried out in a home environment.

Diabetic kidney disease and renal replacement therapy are long-term complications of diabetes mellitus and significantly contribute to disease burden. The aim of the analysis was to develop case definitions for diabetic kidney complications in routine data as part of the diabetes surveillance and to internally validate them.Based on an age- and sex-stratified sample of persons covered by the Barmer health insurance, individuals with documented diabetes (E10-E14) were included and differentiated by type 1 (T1D) and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Case definitions were developed for persons with diabetic nephropathy (DNP; ICD: N08.3, E1x.2), chronic kidney disease (CKD; ICD: N18) and renal replacement therapy (RRT) with long-term dialysis (EBM: 40815-40819, 40823-40828 / OPS: 8-853, 8-854, 8-855, 8-857) or kidney transplantation (OPS: 5-555; EBM: 04561, 13601; ICD Z94.0). The temporal persistence of DNP and CKD was examined by considering different observation periods, and the internal validity was assessed using additional information from the data set for DNP, CKD, and RRT.In 2018, DNP was documented in 15.4% of individuals with diabetes (T1D: 18.3%; T2D: 15.2%), and CKD in 21.8% (T1D: 14.4%, T2D: 22.2%). Considering an observation period of five years (2014-2018), the prevalence estimates increased by 22 and 23%, respectively. RRT was documented in 7.5 per 1,000 individuals with diabetes. Internal validity assessment showed that 96.6% of DNP cases, 93.5% of CKD cases, and all RRT cases met at least one validation criterion.With high internal validity, and prevalence estimate consistent across age groups, the case definition of CKD can be considered suitable for use in surveillance. However, we assume that prevalence is underestimated when considering a 1-year period. For the depiction of RRT (kidney transplantation or long-term dialysis) via routine data, documentation of services must be employed.

In contrast to statutory health insurance (SHI) data, private health insurance (PHI) billing data have scarcely been used for scientific purposes in health and healthcare-related research and epidemiology. To date, findings can be obtained for 87.3% of people with health insurance in Germany based on analyses of SHI data. Often, however, only parts of the entire range of services covered by the SHI are depicted on a project-specific basis, depending on the data provided by the various cooperating health insurance funds. This means that statements can be made about the vast majority of the insured population. Nevertheless, a substantial proportion of the insured population is missing, meaning that no general validity for the entire population has been achieved to date. In addition to the 10% of people with comprehensive PHI, it has not been possible with the previous study focus on SHI data to conduct empirical research on the approximately 29 million people who have statutory health insurance and supplementary private insurance. This gap can be closed by supplementing the data on those with SHI with data on those with PHI. Accordingly, the research data center (FDZ) for health is planning to include private health insurance billing data. Yet there is a number of differences between SHI and PHI data, especially regarding the outpatient physician data, knowledge of which is a prerequisite for the proper analysis and interpretation of PHI data. This first article in a three-part series on the scientific use of PHI data on outpatient care and pharmaceutical prescriptions provides a systematic overview of the methodologically and analytically relevant similarities and differences between the two insurance systems based knowledge gained to date. In addition, the most important terms for the PHI sector are listed in the form of a glossary and the administrative and pragmatic requirements for the scientific use of PHI data are explained.

A dataset can be called "anonymous" only if its content cannot be related to a person, not by any means and not even ex post or by combination with other information. Free text entries highly impede "factual anonymization" for secondary research. Using two source datasets from GPs' electronic medical records (EMR), we aimed at de-identification in an iterative and systematic search for potentially identifying field content (PIF).EMR data of 14,285 to 100 GP patients with 40 variables (parameters, fields) in 5,918,321 resp. 363,084 data lines were analyzed at four levels: field labels, their combination, field content, dataset as a whole. Field labels were arranged into eleven semantic groups according to field type, their frequencies examined and their combination evaluated by GP experts rating the re-identification risk. Iteratively we searched for free text PIFs and masked them for the subsequent steps. The ratio of PIF data lines' number over total number yielded final probability estimators. In addition, we processed a whole dataset using ARX open source software for anonymizing sensitive personal data. Results were evaluated in a data protection impact assessment according to article 35 GDPR, with respect to the severity of privacy breach and to its estimated probability.We found a high risk of re-identification with free text entries into "history", "current diagnosis", "medication" and "findings" even after repeated algorithmic text-mining and natural language processing. Scrupulous pre-selection of variables, data parsimony, privacy by design in data processing and measures described here may reduce the risk considerably, but will not result in a "factually anonymized" research dataset.To identify and assess re-identifying field content is mandatory for privacy protection but anonymization can be reached only partly by reasonable efforts. Semantic structuring of data is pre-conditional but does not help with erroneous entries.

Scientific research with claims data provided by private health insurance companies (PHI companies) requires a basic understanding of the regulatory processes of the utilisation of health-related services by persons with private health insurance, the submission of invoices for healthcare services rendered/prescriptions redeemed to a PHI company, their billing and storage of data. Previous research projects have shown that, with knowledge of the special features of data from PHI companies, these can be used in projects involving claims data in a similar way to data from statutory health insurers. This second part of the series of articles on the scientific utilisation of private health insurance claims data focuses on the creation and flow of insured person and associated billing data in the private health insurance system for the sector of outpatient medical care, including medication. Using an exemplary data flow model for the sectors mentioned, processes and special features in the private health insurance system are systematically illustrated. Taking into account the process-related particularities of data generation and the associated content-related consequences, this article is intended to provide a basic understanding of these data. The information gathered can help decision-makers when planning a study with PHI data. The description of the data flow should support data analysts to consider the administrative and data content challenges in data preparation and evaluation. It is also essential for data analysts to be familiar with the data flow as well as with certain administrative and data content-related challenges. The evaluation of data availability and quality is necessary on an individual basis for each PHI company due to the divergent IT infrastructures and insurance rates. Future research projects with health-related claims data from individual or several PHI companies will expand expertise and empirical knowledge. The use of linkage methods is of particular importance here. The additional use of primary or survey data from privately insured persons will allow the realisation of validation studies that are designed, for instance, to examine the plausibility of recorded diagnoses. The increasing digitalisation of the healthcare system, for example through electronic invoicing and electronic prescriptions, can contribute to improving data content and availability in the future.