Integrated care is described as "the care model of the future." Behind this term lies a simple but highly effective approach: The various service areas of the healthcare system – outpatient, inpatient, and rehabilitative care for patients – are to be networked with the aim of interdisciplinary, cross-specialty, and cross-sectoral collaboration in healthcare.

The headache treatment network

Healthcare professionals from various disciplines in practices and hospitals can not only collaborate more closely with each other, but also with non-physician healthcare providers. This integration also includes patients, self-help groups, and health insurance companies. Integrated care is an ongoing process; it must be continuously implemented and further developed by all stakeholders in the healthcare system.

Integrated care fosters interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral, and collaborative work within the healthcare system. Joint efforts toward clearly defined treatment goals are essential for more medically successful and economically efficient care. Furthermore, creativity in implementing integrated care enables competition for more effective ideas and better solutions.

Networking across sectors optimizes the quality of care through therapeutic synergies, avoids unnecessary waiting times and duplicate examinations, and thus leads to improved treatment quality and more efficient use of insurance funds. The future of medical patient care lies in networking. Successful medical competence networks, which offer cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary care involving hospitals, outpatient and inpatient rehabilitation, medical and assistive device providers, pharmacies, and nursing care, are characterized today primarily by:

  • Orientation of the service offering to the needs of the patients
  • Medical care throughout the entire patient journey from a single source
  • Indication-specific cooperation of specialized high-volume providers
  • Telemedical networking of healthcare providers
  • Services offered across different health insurance providers and independent of specific insurance companies
  • Transparency regarding services, prices and quality
  • Benchmark prices for DRG-based patient careers
  • Guarantee and warranty of a defined treatment success
  • Lean administration, open borders and a clear identity

The organization of the health system maintains pain

Chronic headaches and facial pain are the number one health problem in Germany. In Germany, 54 million people report headaches as a serious health issue at some point in their lives. Nationwide, more than 3 billion individual doses of painkillers are taken annually, 85% of them for headaches. The treatment of headaches exemplifies how the fragmented healthcare system, based on collective bargaining agreements, can itself contribute to illnesses becoming chronic and pain persisting indefinitely. Traditional standard care for headache patients takes place in separate sectors of the healthcare system. Many sufferers with chronic headaches seek treatment outside the professional system due to a perceived lack of effectiveness. They seek information about various headache treatment options from friends and family, the popular press, and pharmacies. Dissatisfied with medical treatment, they often abandon professional therapy and, disappointed, resort to alternative methods. Over months and years, the headache condition becomes even more chronic, and serious organ complications and debilitating psychological consequences then lead patients back to expensive medical treatment.

Nationwide headache treatment network improves treatment quality

New healthcare landscapes in headache therapy

New supply landscapes

The nationwide headache treatment network is the first comprehensive, coordinated healthcare network established to improve treatment quality across regions. The Kiel Pain Clinic is responsible for the nationwide coordination of the network, providing comprehensive patient information, continuing education, and facilitating the exchange of expertise among therapists. A nationwide network of outpatient and inpatient pain therapists in private practices and hospitals collaborates closely to provide optimal pain relief across disciplines and sectors using modern methods. The quality of treatment is documented through continuous scientific research, and the sustainable cost-efficiency across all sectors of the healthcare system is confirmed through analysis of direct and indirect costs. Nearly all major health insurance companies have now joined the healthcare project. The treatment network demonstrates the high clinical and economic efficiency of specialized pain therapy. It shows that effective and modern coordinated therapy can effectively alleviate pain, sustainably reduce costs, and prevent work disability. Patient satisfaction is very high. Risk-sharing arrangements allow healthcare providers to directly participate in the success of their treatments. The treatment network is an example of a supra-regional network involving specialized medical expertise, enabling the development of new, highly effective healthcare landscapes.

Further details are described in a recent review article .