Neuruppin, 23 May 2022

Based on the concept of a “patient university”, the Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane (MHB) plans to establish a “Health Competence Centre” in collaboration with the registered association Gesundheit Berlin-Brandenburg. The idea behind the joint project is to strengthen patients’ general health competences and thus to further improve health care provision specifically in structurally weak rural regions of Brandenburg. The project is one of eleven to be shortlisted for the Award for Health Networkers which is endowed with € 20,000. The winner of this year’s round, the twelfth, will be announced at the 17th Meeting of Health Networkers in Berlin early in September.

Hannah Leichsenring who coordinates the project on behalf of the MHB executive committee is pleased that the project has been shortlisted: “The explicit aims of this undertaking are effectiveness, improvement and consistent participation: representatives of support groups are significantly involved right from the concept phase. Patients, relatives and interested individuals are invited to contribute at all levels of the subsequent build-up phase to develop needs-based services which may help to strengthen health competences.”

The focus at the “Health Competence Centre” will be on education about health risks and prevention and on information about specific pathologies, rare diseases and the health system in general.

This participative approach, so Leichsenring, serves to integrate the perspective of patients and their families right from the start into the processing and presentation of information and the design of service formats to be offered: “In this manner we ensure easy access to, and easy implementation of, available data and findings for all parties involved in the project. Low-threshold access is particularly important in the field of prevention so that interested individuals engage with a subject and improve their health competences.”