Comparative Health Systems PDF

Running head: COMPARATIVE HEALTH SYSTEMS
Comparative Health Systems
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COMPARATIVE HEALTH SYSTEMS1
Introduction-The German Healthcare system or the health system Can be described as
both self-administering and is healthcare is operated by many players and several healthcare
institutions. Fundamentally, the healthcare system in Germany is divided into 3 vital areas:
rehabilitation facilities, inpatient care (this includes the hospital care) and outpatient care. The
institutions that are mainly held responsible for running the healthcare system in Germany
encompass the representatives and associations of the self-help groups, patient organizations,
Federal Ministry of Health, regulatory bodies, health insurers, professions and healthcare
providers (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov 2018). The healthcare system or health system in Germany is based
on four basic principles namely- principle of self-governance, principle of solidarity, funding via
the premium of the insurances, compulsory insurance. The important associations, institutions
and he healthcare providers are: self-help groups and patient organizations, health care
professionals, pharmacy associations, healthcare professionals, public health service, pharmacist,
psychotherapist, dentist, and physician chambers, hospital federation, associations of the
insurance dentists, physicians, and health insurers (Mossialos et al. 2015).
The outpatient care in Germany is mainly provided by the healthcare professional,
psychotherapists, dentists and self-employed doctors. Most of the dentists and the doctors have
an accreditation called the statutory health insurance accreditation and this enables the dentist or
the doctor to treat anyone with a statutory health insurance. Beside the individual care, care is
also provided through jointly by two or more doctors. Thus, larger services are provided only
through the hospitals and such hospitals are referred to as practice hospitals. Outpatient care also
include the medical care provided in a hospital or at the psychiatric institutions and this does not
involve the overnight stay in a hospital (Wagner et al. 2014). The inpatient care includes all the
major hospitals that treat all the patients even if they do not have the private or the statutory

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health insurances. It has been seen that the larger hospitals have the backing of the state or the
municipality. That is these hospitals receive finding by the states and the municipalities. The
church run and he charity run hospitals are operated by the religious groups or by the Red Cross.
There are also private run hospitals that treat patients only if they are privately insured. The
hospitals are specialized and are smaller in size. There are also the provisions for the inpatients
to receive the inpatient medical rehabilitation (Nimptsch and Mansky 2012). The Rehabilitation
centres help and assist the patients to get well from a serious illness, improve the fitness through
the methods of intensive treatments. Thus, the treatment procedures include the psychological
care and physiotherapy. The provisions of rehabilitation are applied immediately after the
conduct of a surgery and after releasing from the hospital stay. There are also rehabilitation
facilities for the people that are suffering from addictions and illness (Köck et al. 2014). This aim
of the study is to describe the health system prevalent in Germany and an evaluation of the
performances of Germany over the years. The study will also emphasize on critiquing the health
policies, that largely focus on the key political, economic, cultural, social and institutional
factors.
Key issues in Germany’s healthcare system- Germany faces several challenges that
includes the rising costs of the treatment options, high cost of diagnosis, high demand for the
supply of the diagnostic tools and pharmaceutical tools and along with the surgical tools,
reunification, financial crisis and globalisation, high levels of unemployment, and increased
burden of ageing population. Thus, it is important to mention that expensive treatment options,
and expensive diagnostic options often result into increasing the rising costs. The three very vital
aspects of the German healthcare system where Germany faces major challenges are the
ambulatory care, hospital management and funding process, acceptance of e-health in the

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ambulatory care by the physicians (Dietrich and Riemer-Hommel 2012). There are other vital
issues that are faced by the German Healthcare system and it includes: i) high risk of contracting
the disease of diabetes mellitus type 2; ii) high rates of mortality arising from the breast cancer;
iii) high levels of tobacco consumption; iv) deteriorating health at the old age (Busse and Blumel
2018).
Medical errors as a key issue in health system- the question of mal-practice, risk
management and patient safety are both critical for the ambulatory health care providers and the
hospitals. it has been see that the data availability on medical errors is unsatisfactory in
Germany. Data accumulated from one of the healthcare institute in Germany, Robert Koch
Institute documented and suspected medical errors to be about 40,000 ever year and among them
about 12,000 were considered to be acknowledged of the damage claims. It has been seen that 5
to 10 percent of the patients have experienced undesirable events additionally half of them were
considered to be as unavoidable. The majority of the damage claims pertain to the medical errors
related to the surgical procedures. The hospital doctors face more confrontation in comparison to
the physicians that are office based. While it has bene seen that the human caused damages are
more frequent, and when it gets combined with the complexities in the system components, the
number of the medical cases rises. Organizational deficiency is considered to be one of the most
common cause of medial error and among the organizational deficiency, insufficient
coordination and insufficient communication among the providers ranks highest. There are
structural factors in the German Health care system that elevates the coordination problems as
well as the improper management of the interfaces. Quality management in Germany has slowed
down in comparison to the other developed countries that have healthcare reforms closely linked
with quality management. Quality management in healthcare has been provided with a