It is the patient’s condition that governs all processes at the hospitals of RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG. To achieve this, we have implemented a multi-level care and accommodation concept: Unlike conventional hospitals, our clinics differentiate between four levels of hospitalisation. This allows the complexity of the individual service units to be reduced, whilst the quality is enhanced both in detail aspects and as a whole. This structure supports the fine-tuning of services, which ensures greater efficiency in meeting the real needs of patients, thus avoiding unnecessary attendance. All diagnostic and therapeutic services required at the various hospitalisation levels can be called upon at all times whenever the need arises.

This multi-level structure not only improves the quality of services for patients but also substantially reduces material and personnel costs.

In this context, Klinikum Meiningen is an example that has met with much recognition nationally and internationally. In Meiningen, operating costs (excluding capital spending) per case are between 20 % and 40 % lower than the national average. The reason behind is that 70 % to 80 % of this hospital’s organisational structures, processes and work practices have been optimised in line with the above-described pattern.

Such changes are triggered and driven by investments. At RHÖN-KLINIKUM, this commences with the physical environment, for instance, with buildings that are designed such as to literally enforce the flow principle, short distances and seemless care for patients; what’s more, their architecture ensures that the new structure and work methods are adhered to. Investing in medical-technical plant is geared such that the equipment itself already defines the range of competency of a given service unit. The benefit for patients: they can be sure that they will receive optimum care at each stage of convalescence and that they will be immediately returned to the higher care levels should they require intensive care.

This concept of consistent patient orientation produces a quality chain that divides labour even more effectively, providing specialised personnel for each stage. Also, each patient is accompanied along this chain by his or her “personal doctor” from the day of admission until the date of discharge. This is realised in an exemplary fashion at the day clinic of Wiesbaden-based DKD.