German minister backs reforms to emergency care to ease overcrowding

Germany's health minister is calling for a "major reform" of emergency health care in the country in an effort to ease overcrowding at hospital emergency departments.

More patients with acute medical issues should be treated in doctors' practices whenever possible. Those with health insurance will also be able to receive much more direct medical care over the telephone or video chat than before without having to visit a clinic.

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach on Tuesday said there was an "incredible potential to save money and improve care at the same time."

Germany's emergency outpatient departments are often overcrowded. Doctors' organizations have been complaining for years that the clinics are often visited by many patients with relatively minor ailments, especially at weekends.

Lauterbach said that 25% to 30% of cases from emergency outpatient clinics could also be treated in doctors' surgeries.

The proposed reforms call for merging emergency departments into new integrated emergency centres, which would also include an affiliated doctors' practice in the immediate vicinity.

Staff at the integrated emergency centre could then assess where incoming patients would best be treated.

Lauterbach announced that there should be one such centre for every 400,000 inhabitants.

The minister said the primary goal of the reform is to ensure that patients are treated more quickly.

"That doesn't always have to be the hospital," but could sufficiently be addressed with a visit the next day to a general doctor, Lauterbach said.

He added that the reforms should be weighed by Germany's Cabinet in the coming months and would go into effect in 2025.