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01. Dezember 2017

OptiMedium December 2017

In this OptiMedium you will get a taste for what 2018 will bring for OptiMedis: establishing the Digital & Health Innovation Centre (a new Business Unit at OptiMedis), developing detailed plans for implementing sustainable integrated care in the Greater Rhine-Neckar Region of Germany with its 2.4 million residents, starting four new EU research projects early 2018, and much more to come…

Editorial

Dear Readers, dear Friends,

2017 was a very busy year for OptiMedis: our regional integrator company “Gesundheit for Billstedt/Horn UG” started its operations, we were successful in securing investment from the social impact investor BonVenture, we established our UK presence, expanded our team in Hamburg and engaged in numerous activities to support population-based accountable care in Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and abroad.

Our work continues to attract national and international interest, as indicated by the number of delegations that visit our work in Kinzigtal, Hamburg Billstedt/Horn as well our head office in the centre of Hamburg. We also increasingly use our acclaimed data warehouse and business intelligence for research work contracted by health insurance companies.

In this OptiMedium you will get a taste for what 2018 will bring for OptiMedis: establishing the Digital & Health Innovation Centre (a new Business Unit at OptiMedis), developing detailed plans for implementing sustainable integrated care in the Greater Rhine-Neckar Region of Germany with its 2.4 million residents, starting four new EU research projects early 2018, and much more to come…

We hope you enjoy reading this update of our work and wish you a Merry Christmas!

Oliver Groene 279x372

Sincerly,

Dr Oliver Gröne
Vice Chairman of the Board


About OptiMedis and our projects

Germany’s First Health Kiosk Opens in Hamburg-Billstedt

Kioskeröffnung Billstedt 1Senator Cornelia Prüfer-Storcks opening the country’s first health kiosk – an important piece of the puzzle in the new healthcare network.Access to healthcare will be made simple, proficient and quick for residents in the districts of Billstedt and Horn in Hamburg. This has been made possible by the first health kiosk in Germany, which was officially opened on 28th August 2017. The new, straight-forward service based on international models is part of a healthcare network developed jointly in the districts of Billstedt and Horn by the regional integrator company “Gesundheit für Billstedt/Horn UG” with its main shareholders, the physician network of  Billstedt-Horn,  the health management company OptiMedis AG and the local district hospital. The project was sponsored by the innovation fund, with resources from state health insurers. “This health kiosk is an innovative project that provides patients in Billstedt and Horn with a new, straight-forward healthcare and advisory service to increase their healthcare knowledge. Such initiatives are an important foundation for the further development and improvement of healthcare, especially in more socially deprived parts of the cities”, said Hamburg’s healthcare senator, Cornelia Prüfer-Storcks, at the opening ceremony.

Kiosk innenA medically trained and multilingual team advises patients six days a week.

The range of services offered by the health kiosk is vast: The medically trained and multilingual team advises patients before and after doctors’ appointments, coordinates treatment steps, and communicates with establishments and organisations in the district. The aim of the project initiators and partners is not only to close existing gaps in healthcare but to also increase healthcare and prevention measures in these parts of the city. “Chronic illnesses such as diabetes occur in Billstedt/Horn almost ten years earlier than the average in Hamburg. We want to change that”, said Matthias Mohrmann, member of the board at the health insurance company AOK Rheinland/Hamburg. “The health kiosk is an important step towards healthcare that is better orientated towards people and that people can access in their everyday lives.”

With its broad advisory service, the health kiosk will also help patients become experts in their own health  matters. “The goal is to improve the healthcare knowledge of patients and activate them more to use their own initiatives regarding their health”, explained Dr h.c. Helmut Hildebrandt, managing director of Gesundheit für Billstedt/Horn UG. Doctors from these parts of the city also see great benefits, as summarised by registered specialist physician Dr Gerd Fass, one of the initiators of the healthcare network: “The advisory service increases the effectiveness of our medical recommendations and helps patients sustainably change their behaviour.”

Advice at the health kiosk is free. As well as German, the kiosk staff speak the languages most frequently used in these parts of the city, including Turkish, Russian, Polish, Spanish, English, Portuguese, Dari and Farsi. In preparation for their work, the employees have undergone intensive training over the past few months, of which a major part was training run by the institute and polyclinic for general medicine at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf and shadowing at medical practices and district institutions.

Over the past three months, the concept of the health kiosk has been trialled as part of a test phase in Mümmelmannsberg. “The service was received very well by patients”, said Fass. So far, over 280 residents of Billstedt and Horn have made use of the advisory service. “It is mainly patients with language difficulties who benefit from the advice and intermediation.”

Success and transferability

In order to gauge the success of the health kiosk, Hamburg Center for Health Economics (HCHE) at Universität Hamburg, under the guidance of Prof Dr Jonas Schreyögg, is evaluating the project. The satisfaction of the patients and their level of activation, amongst other things, are also being determined. The project is focused on the long term, with the aim of further actors and health insurers becoming involved.

Internationally proven concept

The health kiosk model is based on the terveyskioski kiosks in Finland. There are also similar concepts in the USA: in so-called retail clinics, which can be found in shopping centres, supermarkets and pharmacies, where primary care and health advice services are provided. The service is based on the “walk-in” principle, without the need for prior booking. In general, the retail clinics and the terveyskioski kiosks in Finland are for initial advice or the provision of initial information for the visitors’ concerns.


BonVenture Invests Six-digit Amount in OptiMedis

Following an intense business model evaluation, the Munich-based BonVenture Group invested a large six-digit amount of its BonVenture III social entrepreneurship fund to promote the development of OptiMedis AG. This first closing is to be followed by a second closing between BonVenture and other investors before early 2018. OptiMedis AG is already in talks with potential investors who also support social entrepreneurs.

OptiMedis AG focuses on establishing regional, patient-oriented healthcare networks together with municipalities, hospitals, doctors, social institutions, and other regional partners in Germany and Europe.  The organisation participates in the respective regional management enterprises on-site, links partners, establishes the necessary structures, assumes managerial tasks, and analyses the healthcare data. The goal is to improve the structures and processes in the healthcare system and hence the quality of healthcare, as well as to enable and entice the public to assume greater responsibility for their health.

Herdrich 02BonVenture partner Jochen Herdrich

“Through this investment, we want to contribute to the implementation of the innovative and tested healthcare model by OptiMedis in further regions and thus benefit people all over Germany”, explains BonVenture’s partner, Jochen Herdrich. “We are convinced by the well-founded healthcare model as well as the scientific, competent, and motivated management of OptiMedis.”

The evaluation results from the past years show that the healthcare model of OptiMedis AG achieves its goals. It improves the health status of the regional population, increases the satisfaction of patients and healthcare providers, and helps save unnecessary costs. OptiMedis AG and its regional management companies are hereby rewarded based on their success and according to an innovative financing model of health insurance companies. This model creates an incentive for all participants to keep their region as healthy as possible, as opposed to accounting for as many services as possible, as it is the case with the current remuneration system.

Growth plans: scale-up of the healthcare model, expansion of the healthcare research, development of a digital & health innovation centre

BonVenture’s investment has taken OptiMedis AG into a new growth phase. “This investment, together with other planned investments, will help us prepare the scale-up of our care model in Germany and in Europe at large, further expand the analysis of healthcare data for health insurance companies, universities, and medical networks, as well as establish a digital & health innovation centre for evaluation of innovations in the healthcare sector”, explains Dr h.c. Helmut Hildebrandt, founder and chairman of the management board of OptiMedis AG.

The most popular engagement of OptiMedis AG is Gesundes Kinzigtal in Southern Baden (www.gesundes-kinzigtal.de). Here, the integrated healthcare system has been running successfully for ten years and has enjoyed international recognition as a flagship project. Since January 2017, OptiMedis AG has been working to establish the Gesundheit für Billstedt/Horn healthcare network in two socially disadvantaged districts in Hamburg (www.gesundheit-bh.de). The project is funded by the innovation fund of the Joint National Committee and evaluated scientifically just like Gesundes Kinzigtal. OptiMedis AG has also established joint ventures in other European countries – the Netherlands (www.optimedis.nl) and England (www.optimedis-cobic.co.uk) – with more to come.


EIT Health Germany Supports OptiMedis IC Project in the Greater Rhine-Neckar Region

EITHealthPhoto: EIT Health GermanyThe EIT Health Head Start Programme 2017 supports promising ideas in the field of innovative solutions for health care. Among the winners of the second bidding round in 2017 is „HealthLab MRN 2025“, a project initiated by the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Area (MRN) with the support of OptiMedis AG. It is receiving a grant of € 50,000 to develop a business plan for implementing sustainable integrated care in the Greater Rhine-Neckar Region.

With the grant from EIT Health Germany, the planned development of a digitally integrated, comprehensive healthcare provision system for the 2.4 million residents in the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Area can be driven forward intensively. Sub-regions comprising about 100,000 to 150,000 residents shall be created, in which local service providers and patients network using an electronic health record, and local management companies coordinate and organize local care delivery and prevention efforts. A management holding company assumes central coordination of the sub-regions and provide them with know-how, for which OptiMedis AG already conducted a feasibility study. „With the EIT Health Head Start Programme grant, we can immediately start going to the next phase of implementation. In addition, we also benefit from EIT Health’s large European network which facilitates access to potential partners and investors for this project of unprecedented scale in the field of population-orientated integrated care in Germany“, says Dr h. c. Helmut Hildebrandt, chairman of the management board of OptiMedis AG.

A total of 25 suitable project proposals were submitted to the EIT Health Head Start Programme 2017, and evaluated by an external jury in the project excellence, marketing potential, market strategy, and project impacts categories.

Click here for EIT Health Germany’s press release.


Digital & Health Innovation Centre: New Evaluation Process to Test Innovations in Care

Header Website InnoCentreOptiMedis evaluates innovations and tests them in real-world-scenarios.OptiMedis AG wants to make it easier for promising innovations in healthcare to be translated into routine care provision. It has established a Digital & Health Innovation Centre that evaluates innovations like health apps, online interventions or health programmes and tests them in real-world scenarios. The aim is to complement the classic evaluation processes in the healthcare sector by focusing on practical application, generating business cases and modelling its impact – thus making it easier for health insurance companies, management companies, networks of physicians or hospitals to make selections in the complex innovations market. „Even innovations with high potential have often poor chances of being translated into standard care. This is because for an individual physician or hospital the benefit of an innovation may be uncertain, there may be no incentives for system change or it may be unclear what conditions are required for implementation“, explains Dr Oliver Gröne, vice chairman of the management board of OptiMedis AG and responsible for the Innovation Centre at OptiMedis. „We evaluate the innovations, in particular, regarding their benefits, acceptance, and feasibility in a real-world care scenario – often focusing on distinct local health geographies. Thus, we can generate real-world evidence in comparison with other evaluation processes.“

Multi-stage Evaluation Process

The evaluation process in the Innovation Centre has multiple stages: innovations are first compared and evaluated based on existing evidence and in relation to viability. In the second phase, the application, provided it is suitable, undergoes practical field tests for acceptance and benefits among selected users. If the results are promising, the third stage sees it being evaluated based on real care data and deployed in the cooperating networks of OptiMedis AG in Germany and abroad . In this phase, business models can also be developed and incentive structures changed in a way that appreciate the overall benefit of an innovation for the system – and thus for patients, doctors, and health insurance providers.

Phasenmodell

An example from real life: a management company wants to provide a video interpreter solution for the insured persons in a region with high linguistic barriers. It wants to know which one of the many solutions offers the best quality and will also be well received by patients and doctors. The Innovation Centre first compares several solutions and evaluates the quality. The application that is most promising for the specific region is then deployed in a pilot phase, as is currently the case in the Billstedt and Horn neighbourhoods of Hamburg. If the test phase is successful, the system effects of the solution will be modelled and the solution can be implemented – if necessary, in a customized form and with the right incentives for use – in other regions.

Apart from setting up regional integrated care and analysing care and health data, the Digital & Health Innovation Centre is a new business unit of OptiMedis AG.

You can also find information on the Innovation Centre in our Innovation Centre category, which we are currently expanding. If you have any questions, please email us at innovation@optimedis.de. Your contact is Dr Oliver Gröne.


OptiMedis-COBIC UK ltd: Reflections on the First Year

OptiMedis-COBIC UK ltdCOBICf.l.t.r.: Dr Oliver Gröne, Timo Schulte (OptiMedis AG), Dr Nicholas Hicks und Andrew P. Smith presented the Joint Venture OptiMedis-COBIC UK (OM-C) was set up exactly a year ago, reason enough to reflect on progress to date!

What is OM-C? OM-C brings together the expertise and experience of two well established and pioneering companies, OptiMedis AG from Germany and COBIC Ltd from the UK, working in close association with Imperial College Health Partners (ICHP), the Academic Health Science Network. OM-C and its parent organisations are value-driven as are its partners pursuing the sole mission is to get better outcomes for citizens, their families and their communities and better value for those that pay for care. OM-C works with local health and care economies in the National Health Service to develop, design and implement Accountable Care Systems that focus on the outcomes that matter most to local people.

In the last year, in addition to setting up operations and communications, OM-C has won a significant contract to undertake a 12 month due diligence and preparation exercise for a health care integrator function with Fareham and Gosport Clinical Commissioning Group –  this is being delivered through an OMC-led consortium, which includes North-East London Commissioning Support Unit, Imperial College Health Care Partners, PPL and Social Finance. A similar contract, albeit smaller in scale, is being implemented in East Grinstead. OM-C also delivered, and continues to do so in 2018, a series of training workshops and capability development programmes to support Commissioners in their efforts to implement current NHS reforms.

We also delivered, together with the word class Imperial College Business School a 3-day intensive course on  “Accountable Care – Making it Happen” which we also plan to repeat in 2018. Throughout the year, we had meetings with senior NHS officials to discuss Accountable Care reforms and have been invited to various consortia to deliver these reforms.

In summary, it has been a very busy year – OM-C has now a solid business plan, sales pipeline and is seeking investment to go into the next phase of development. We are looking forward to 2018!


Green Light for New EU and Research Projects

OptiMedis has won tenders for various research projects that will be sponsored by the EU under the auspices of the European „Horizon 2020“ Research Programme and the German Innovation Fund.

HealthPros

The „HealthPros“ project (Performance Intelligence Professionals) is a  so-called „Marie Sklodowska-Curie Training Network“. The aim is to train 13 international doctoral candidates in the field of „data science for health system performance assessment“ and enable the candidates to combine advanced data science knowledge with strategic decision making on improving health system performance. Profs Niek Klazinga and Dionne Kringos (University of Amsterdam) lead the project, Dr Oliver Gröne, deputy chairman of the management board of OptiMedis AG and co-IP will lead the work package „Governance Mechanisms for Performance Improvement“ and will be responsible – in collaboration with Prof Jonas Schreyögg of the Hamburg Center for Health Economics – for the training and supervision two doctoral candidates.

COMPARE-EU

As part of the „COMPARE-EU“ project, the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of self-management interventions are compared using network meta-analyses. Building on the results, decision aids for doctors will be developed and their integration into existing business models tested. OptiMedis plays a central role in the evaluation and practical implementation of the identified interventions and in the development of business models, closely related to the activities of OptiMedis AG’s Digital & Health Innovation Centre .

Big Data for Medical Analytics

The „Big Data for Medical Analytics“ project is a large scale innovation programme that seeks to apply Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, and Cognitive Computing to integrated care systems. The total volume of the proposal is 15 million Euro and brings together leading IT and data science firms and universities. OptiMedis will lead on one of the pilot tests to design and evaluate interventions to reduce unnecessary hospitalisations.

ACT@Scale

The overall goal for ACT@Scale is to identify, transfer and scale up existing and operational Care Coordination and Telehealth good practices with the target of reaching a total of 75,000 care recipients across regions and programmes in multiple European countries. OptiMedis will provide data analytics to the project and in collaboration with colleagues in Gesundes Kinzigtal, assess the scaling up of health programmes to larger populations.

INTEGRAL

This project will extend the scientific evaluation of the population-orientated integrated care network Gesundes Kinzigtal. Following up on the first phase of evaluating the Gesundes Kinzigtal’s build-up phase from 2006 to 2011 the aim is now to investigate how the quality of care has developed long-term under everyday conditions in comparison with similar regions. The project was funded for two years by the innovation council of the Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss, the highest decision-making body of the joint self-government of physicians, dentists, hospitals and health insurance funds in Germany, with 528,513 Euro.

These and other projects are important to OptiMedis AG in order to drive forward the expansion of its data analytics. „In future, we can thus carry out epidemiological and medical economic analyses even more quickly and precisely, a service that we increasingly provide to universities, health insurance providers, and other healthcare companies for research and development purposes“, explains OptiMedis board member Oliver Gröne. You can find additional information on OptiMedis AG’s specialisations in data analytics and healthcare research at www.optimedis.com/health-data-analytics.


OptiMedis Delivers Important Insights into the Care Situation of People with Dementia

This year, OptiMedis AG also contributed to the Care Report of the DAK-Gesundheit health insurance fund. The report, titled „Living well with Dementia“, focuses on the care situation of patients with dementia and the possibilities of supporting sufferers and relatives more intensively. OptiMedis analysed the billing data of DAK Gesundheit for all insured persons requiring care and suffering from dementia spanning 2014 to 2016 (about 100,000 patients per year).

DemenzThe analysis provides central findings on the structure of patients with dementia and on how the care situation changes after the first diagnosis. If the prevalence, i.e. the proportion of all patients with dementia, among DAK policyholders is projected onto Germany, an estimated 1.4 million people suffer from dementia and there are about 282,000 new patients every year. On the average, women are 84 years old at the time of their first diagnosis and men 81 years old. In three-quarters of the case, the first diagnosis is made by a general practitioner or other out-patient doctor. As expected, use of public health and care insurance services grows in leaps and bounds after the first diagnosis. Care services such as domestic nursing or in-patient care in nursing homes are used very intensively; in-patient hospital stays also occur more often: over 75 percent of all dementia patients are treated at least once in the hospital within a period of one year after their first diagnosis. They receive treatment there more often than before the dementia diagnosis for dehydration and electrolyte deficiency or blood loss, various fractures (mainly thigh, lumbar spine, and pelvic fractures due to an increased tendency to fall) or delirious states (e.g. perception, awareness or motor disorders).

Several medications are also prescribed more often after the dementia diagnosis. Among these are, on the one hand, not only anti-dementia drugs, which are supposed to retard the progression of the illness, but also controversial medications such as antipsychotics, hypnotics, and sedatives, which are being increasingly used in treating delusions, restlessness, anxiety, and agitated states among patients in nursing homes.

The article of the OptiMedis analysis team, comprised of Laura Lange, Timo Schulte, Birger Dittmann, and Dr h.c. Helmut Hildebrandt, and the other studies in the current Care Report of DAK-Gesundheit offer, apart from the descriptive results, numerous starting points on how a participatory lifestyle for patients with dementia can be achieved and how societal challenges can be tackled.

If you need information about our services in the field of care research, please contact Timo Schulte, Head of Health Data Analytics & IT.


At a glance

Focus on E-Health: Finnish Delegation Visits Health Kiosk

FinlandHealthUnder the theme, „Finnish Digitalization meets German Healthcare“, representatives of innovative companies from Finland visited different Hamburg-based healthcare companies, among which were OptiMedis AG and Gesundheit für Billstedt/Horn UG. During the event in the newly opened health kiosk in the Billstedt neighbourhood, the head of the Finnish delegation lauded the implementation of the walk-in health centre in Hamburg using the Finnish „Terveyskioski“ (health kiosk) as an inspiration and, with regard to the OptiMedis model presented at the beginning; emphasized common points of reference (e.g. the possibility of consistent implementation at regional level) and challenges (e.g. the creation of attractive incentive and reward systems) regarding the implementation of digital solutions. The visitors‘ presentations showed that Finnish e-Health solutions, such as apps that provide support for patients in the period before and after an operation or robotics solutions for an intelligent pharmacy, can be of interest for upcoming challenges in the German health sector. There was also a lively exchange revolving around the Digital & Health Innovation Centre recently founded by OptiMedis.


Collaborative Prenatal Care with Digital Support

In collaboration with Philips Germany and the Picker Institute Germany, OptiMedis AG has launched a project to improve care for pregnant women in northern Germany. By applying different components of a new model of care, the aim is to improve prenatal and postnatal care through the fourth month of life, and lower the rates of caesarean, premature and SGA births.

The reasons for launching the project are considerable structural shortcomings in prenatal care, e.g. due to lack of communication among stakeholders or limited networking between the medical community and early support services. The project will be bidding for the next round of funding from the innovation fund of the Federal Joint Committee, the highest decision-making body of the joint self-government of physicians, dentists, hospitals and health insurance funds in Germany, by March 2018.

Components of improved care

Independent midwives are encouraged to take on a stronger role in guiding pregnant women, especially in the areas of prevention and early support services. To enable earlier access to support systems by pregnant women, particularly those with social, psychological, or financial problems, collaboration has been sought with the early support services in place since 2007. The focus is thus on the risk selection of pregnant women, additionally supported by a guiding risk questionnaire.

The basis for communication and networking is a digital communications platform developed by Philips, including an app for pregnant women and a digital maternity log, which is still available only in paper form in Germany. Pregnant women themselves, as well as the treating gynecologists, midwives, and hospitals will have access to this platform. Collaboration between outpatient service providers and maternity clinics will also be promoted with interdisciplinary ongoing education courses and quality circles.


Delegation from Singapore Visits Gesundes Kinzigtal

Singapore

A six-person team from the National University Health System, an academic health science centre in Singapore, was able to gain comprehensive insights into Gesundes Kinzigtal’s care structures over the course of one and a half days. The interdisciplinary delegation was introduced to the management company’s various on-site operations and activities – from care management to the fitness studio. Also on the agenda: visits to a medical and a clinical service partner in integrated care. During the visit, various interventions with regard to patient activation were a major focus of interest. The experts from Singapore consider these to be key to the success of the care concept. This led to a lively exchange, with the following question always in view: How might this work in Singapore?


Events, you can meet us

ICIC18 – 18th International Conference on Integrated Care, 23-25 May, Utrecht

Value for People and Populations: Investing in Integrated Care

The International Foundation of Integrated Care (IFIC) in partnership with RIVM and Vilans presents the 18th International conference on Integrated Care “Value for People and Populations: Investing in Integrated Care” to take place in The NBC Congrescentrum, Utrecht, Netherlands 23 – 25 May 2018.

The conference will bring together researchers, clinicians and managers from around the world who are engaged in the design and delivery of integrated health and social care. They shared experience and the latest evidence about integrating Public Health, Health and Social Care and the New roles and Possibilities for Hospitals, producing Positive and Curative Integrated Mental and Physical Care, mobilising key enablers like policy making and Mobile and Digital Health Solutions, and investment in an Integrated Care Workforce, clinical leadership and coproduction with individuals, careers, communities and populations.

Some colleagues of OptiMedis will be there. Please give us a note, if you are interested to meet with us there.

Further information

Link


Publications

  • Fischer, C., Lingsma, H., Klazinga, N., Hardwick, R., Cromwell, D., Steyerberg, E., Gröne, O. (2017). Volume-outcome revisited: The effect of hospital and surgeon volumes on multiple outcome measures in oesophago-gastric cancer surgery. PLOS ONE 12(10): e0183955. Link
    This study evaluated the relation between hospital- and surgeon volume and different risk-adjusted outcomes after oesophago-gastric (OG) cancer surgery in England between 2011 and 2013. In data from the National Oesophago-Gastric Cancer Audit from the UK, multivariable random-effects logistic regression models were used to quantify the effect of surgeon and hospital volume on three outcomes: 30-day and 90-day mortality and anastomotic leakage.
  • Gröne, O., Pimperl, A., Hildebrandt, H. (2017). The Role of Integrated Care and Population Health. In K. Aase et al. (Hrsg), Researching Quality in Care Transitions – International Perspectives. Springer International Publishing. 259-279. Link
    The authors draw attention to the fact that there is a lot to be gained from bringing together transitional care programmes with approaches that address the wider health system environment in order to address the increasing complexity in the management of care transitions. They aim to illustrate the application of organizational models to improve quality and safety using an international best-practice example. The chapter ends with recommendations for policymakers, health care decision-makers and evaluators regarding the alignment of theory, model specification, implementation and attribution of quality and safety outcomes to effects.
  • Gröne O., Pfaff H., Hildebrandt H. (2017). Germany: Scaling Up a Population-Based Integrated Healthcare System: The Case of “Healthy Kinzigtal” in Germany. In: J. Braithwaite et al (Hrsg.), Health Systems Improvement Across the Globe: Success Stories from 60 Countries. CRC Press. 167–174. Link
    Healthy Kinzigtal is the only fully population-based system in Germany that has been subject to rigorous external evaluation. The authors describe the evaluated success of Healthy Kinzigtal in improving quality and care experience, while reducing costs. They also show a number of conditions need to be met to ensure that the results can be scaled up and successfully replicated elsewhere.
  • Gröne, O., Hildebrandt, H. (2017). Germany: Evolution and Scaling Up of the Population-Based Integrated Health Care System “Healthy Kinzigtal” In: V. Amelung et al. (Hrsg.), Handbook Integrated Care. Springer International Publishing. 511-524. Link
    For the standard work „Handbook Integrated Care“, Gröne and Hildebrandt present the development from Healthy Kinzigtal to one of the most well-known best practice models in the field of integrated care. They outline important framework conditions for a successful adaptation based on associated evaluation studies.