First version “too complex”
Lauterbach brings “update” of hospital atlas
19.06.2024, 05:05
The hospital atlas is only a month old and it is already undergoing its first revision. After criticism, Health Minister Lauterbach admits that the first batch was not useful for laypeople.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has announced a new version of the online portal for hospitals that was launched a few weeks ago. “We are giving the hospital atlas a comprehensive update and making it much easier for patients to understand,” the SPD politician told the “Rheinische Post”. The new atlas should “be launched in just a few days,” the minister explained. The hospital atlas was launched in mid-May. About the portal www.bundes-klinik-atlas.de Information can be retrieved for each of the approximately 1,700 German clinics.
Lauterbach said that so far the atlas has provided “detailed information for 23,000 different procedures,” which is “confusing” for many citizens and family doctors. “Now we want to show how good each hospital is for the 20 most important procedures,” explained the SPD politician. To do this, groups of diseases are grouped together.
Tacho shows how much experience a clinic has
In future, patients will be guided through the homepage using “larger tiles” “with general terms such as cancer, heart or bones and joints”. Individual illnesses and operations will then be broken down into sections. A “speedometer system” will be used to differentiate “who has an above-average number of treatments per year or who has a few,” said Lauterbach.
“In this way, the hospital atlas makes it clear to everyone why we so urgently need hospital reform. We should only leave complicated procedures to those who have sufficient experience,” explained the SPD minister.
The health minister rejected criticism of the first version of the hospital atlas. “It is largely unjustified. The treatment data used, which are based on 16 million insured people, are correct,” he argued. However, the debate has shown “that the atlas is too complex for laypeople,” which is why there is now “an improved version.”