Two exciting days at the 13th Hospital Procurement Congress (BKK) in Berlin are over. Reto Bucher from Kantonsspital Aarau AG, Stephan Pitan from Medline Europe and Martin Gut from Spital STS AG discussed the challenges in the Swiss hospital procurement market on behalf of Sana Suisse Med AG. The lively exchange was moderated by Christoph Thurmaier (Sana Suisse Med AG). The differences between the German and Swiss healthcare systems were also highlighted during the discussion.
Interestingly, Germany has significantly fewer nursing staff, doctors and hospitals per capita and lower personnel and material costs compared to Switzerland. Although the structures in the Swiss healthcare system are therefore more cost-intensive, Germany spends 11% more of its GDP on healthcare. How is that possible?
The explanations given in the presentation are the higher utilization of benefits in Germany:
38 % longer length of stay (5.3 vs. 7.3 days)
130 % more visits to the doctor (4.3 vs. 9.0 per person p.a.) 38 % more inpatient cases (15,877 vs. 21,895 per 100,000 inhabitants)
The lower utilization of benefits in Switzerland is probably due, among other things, to the control elements in the insurance sector such as the deductible and excess.
In addition to the macroeconomic differences between the German and Swiss healthcare systems, we discussed the changes in hospital procurement and logistics with representatives from the Swiss healthcare system and gave the German procurement experts an insight into the topics in Switzerland.
In the run-up to the procurement congress, we asked our Swiss cooperation hospitals and business partners in the industry about the current key topics. You can find the results here:
The results indicate that sustainability and security of supply are significantly more important issues for Swiss industry representatives than for Swiss hospital purchasers. On the other hand, Swiss hospital purchasers are more concerned with the topic of digitalization than industry representatives are, according to the survey. A total of 39 people from Swiss purchasing departments and industry took part in the survey in the run-up to the BKK.
At the procurement congress, we also conducted a live survey with the audience (n=46) of the panel discussion. This also gave us an impression of the main topics of the German industry representatives and hospital buyers. You can find the results of the survey in the pictures:
Compared to the survey conducted in Switzerland, the predominantly German participants at the Procurement Congress (BKK) gave significantly less weight to the topic of material cost controlling and security of supply than the Swiss hospitals and industry partners. Only in the areas of tenders and sustainability do the BKK participants rank higher than hospital purchasers from Switzerland.
Overall, the topics of cost pressure, security of supply and digitalization are comparatively important in both countries.
Tenders
and New Work play a relatively minor role in everyday working life in both Germany and Switzerland. The topic of sustainability plays a particularly important role for the industrial partners in Switzerland.
It can be said that the industry and hospitals in Germany and Switzerland are working on similar issues and can drive these forward together. The exchange at the procurement congress showed that discourse and learning from each other can help to continuously develop healthcare. As a purchasing association, we would like to make our contribution to the joint exchange and continuous further development of the healthcare system.
