The economic burden of nosocomial infections for hospitals: evidence from Germany.

Background: Nosocomial infections (NI) significantly worsen patient outcomes, resulting in higher mortality rates and reduced health-related quality of life. Furthermore, they pose substantial economic strain on healthcare systems and hospitals. For instance, patients with nosocomial infections (NIs) experience prolonged hospital stays compared to those without NIs.

Cost-of-illness and Economic Evaluation of Interventions in Children and Adolescents With Chronic Pain: A Systematic Review.

Objectives: Chronic pain in children and adolescents (CPCA) is widespread with an increasing prevalence. It is associated with a decreased quality of life and an increased parental work loss. Accordingly, CPCA may pose a substantial economic burden for patients, health care payers, and society.

Evidence of the medical and economic benefits of implementing hygiene measures by a prevention link physician in trauma surgery: Study protocol for a biphasic multicenter prospective interventional pre-post cohort study using a structured intervention bundle development and tools of behavior change management.

Introduction: The German Commission for Hospital Hygiene and Infection Prevention recommends nominating one authorized medical specialist in every medical department as an infection prevention link physician (PLP). It has been roughly described that a PLP serves as a link between the infection prevention team and the respective clinical departments. No detailed evidence about the contribution made by PLPs to the decrease of infection rates is available in Germany.

[Care planning for people with dementia on the margins of care between home care and nursing home: the balance of care approach in the RightTimePlaceCare project in Germany].

Background: The balance of care approach is a strategic planning framework that can be used to research the adequacy of care arrangements and the cost implications. It seeks to identify people who are on the margins of care, i. e.

Costs of Care of Agitation Associated With Dementia in 8 European Countries: Results From the RightTimePlaceCare Study.

Objective: To estimate the additional societal costs for people living with dementia (PwD) with agitation in home care (HC) and institutional long-term care (ILTC) settings in 8 European countries.

Design: Cross-sectional data from the RightTimePlaceCare cohort.

Setting: HC and ILTC settings from 8 European countries (Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and England).

Informal and formal care: Substitutes or complements in care for people with dementia? Empirical evidence for 8 European countries.

Background: In order to contain public health care spending, European countries attempt to promote informal caregiving. However, such a cost reducing strategy will only be successful if informal caregiving is a substitute for formal health care services. We therefore analyze the effect of informal caregiving for people with dementia on the use of several formal health care services.

Health Care Utilization and Cost in Children and Adolescents With Chronic Pain: Analysis of Health Care Claims Data 1 Year Before and After Intensive Interdisciplinary Pain Treatment.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to analyze changes in health care utilization and cost among a sample of highly impaired children and adolescents who sought a 3-week intensive interdisciplinary pain treatment (IIPT).

Materials And Methods: Claims data from 7 statutory health insurance companies were analyzed for 65 children and adolescents who sought IIPT at the German Paediatric Pain Centre. The annual health care utilization and cost were determined for the following 4 areas: outpatient care, inpatient care, medications, and remedies and aids.

Costs of care for people with dementia just before and after nursing home placement: primary data from eight European countries.

Background: Dementia is the most common cause of functional decline among elderly people and is associated with high costs of national healthcare in European countries. With increasing functional and cognitive decline, it is likely that many people suffering from dementia will receive institutional care in their lifetime. To delay entry to institutional care, many European countries invest in home and community based care services.

A European study investigating patterns of transition from home care towards institutional dementia care: the protocol of a RightTimePlaceCare study.

Background: Health care policies in many countries aim to enable people with dementia to live in their own homes as long as possible. However, at some point during the disease the needs of a significant number of people with dementia cannot be appropriately met at home and institutional care is required. Evidence as to best practice strategies enabling people with dementia to live at home as long as possible and also identifying the right time to trigger admission to a long-term nursing care facility is therefore urgently required.

[How to bring quality into the focus of health care--results of a delphi and stakeholder survey].

Although plenty of statutory requirements, concepts and tools to promote the quality of health care exist, Germany's health care system seems far from being pervaded by a vivid quality culture. In order to show ways how to succeed in developing and implementing such a quality culture in the German health care system, the Bertelsmann foundation conducted a delphi survey of seven quality of care experts and an online survey of 239 stakeholders, encompassing health care providers and representatives of the self administration of the health care system, politicians, the health care industry, and patient representatives. Based on the delphi results 31 theses within 12 subject areas have been formulated and assessed, which describe building blocks to put quality in the center of Germany's health care system.

The influence of insurance status on waiting times in German acute care hospitals: an empirical analysis of new data.

Background: There is an ongoing debate in Germany about the assumption that patients with private health insurance (PHI) benefit from better access to medical care, including shorter waiting times (Lüngen et al. 2008), compared to patients with statutory health insurance (SHI).

Problem: Existing analyses of the determinants for waiting times in Germany are a) based on patient self-reports and b) do not cover the inpatient sector.

The legal framework for health care quality assurance in Germany.

Like most industrialized countries, Germany's health care system is facing two major challenges. The first is to find a sustainable financing system for increasing health care expenditures. The second is to ensure - and improve - the quality of care provided.

How to get the information needed to inform decision-makers - an economic perspective.

From an economic viewpoint, the amount of primary research conducted on a topic at any given point in time depends on grantmaker and researcher incentives. The potential addresses of research findings often set these incentives. Following this logic, there is an economic explanation provided for the availability of primary data in effcacy studies.