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Panel of experts to assess developments in the health services

Two professors at Bielefeld University's Faculty of Health Sciences are to become members of the new advisory council set up to assess developments in the health care system: Professor Dr. Doris Schaeffer and Professor Dr. Wolfgang Greiner. Their names were announced yesterday (13 July) by the Federal Minister of Health Philipp Rösler. This is the most important body of experts on German health policy. It is interdisciplinary and contains seven members.

Its task is to deliver expert opinions to the Federal Ministry of Health every two years. Within this framework, its remit includes:
•    Analysing trends in health care and their medical and economic impact
•    Setting priorities for overcoming care deficits and removing care surpluses within the framework of existing financial framing conditions and available cost-efficiency reserves
•    Making recommendations for medical and economic data registries
•    Pointing out possible ways of further developing the health care system

Doris Schaeffer has been Professor of Health Sciences at Bielefeld University since 1997. She runs the health services research/nursing science research group and the Institute for Nursing Sciences, and she is the spokeswoman for the NRW-Pflegeforschungsverbund [NRW nursing research association] funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. In 1995, she was a visiting professor at the University of Vienna, and in 2006, at the University of Klagenfurt.
Before coming to Bielefeld University, she spent several years working at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) in its Public Health research group and at the Freie Universität Berlin in, among others, the Institute for Social Medicine.

Her main workfields are in the field of health research, specializing in coping with chronic illness and health impairments, as well as maintaining good health in old age. Within health services research, she specializes in patient- and customer-oriented care and services for those dependent on care. Nursing science is another strong workfield of Doris Schaeffer. Here, she focuses particularly on developing and scientifically evaluating new fields for nursing, such as case management, patient counselling, and self-management support. She has published a great deal on these topics and is a well-known editor or co-editor of various manuals and textbooks on nursing science, qualitative health and nursing research, patient counselling, and case management.

Doris Schaeffer has served and continues to serve on numerous panels and expert commissions such as the National Aids Council (since 1998), the experts' commission for compiling the Federal Governments fourth report on aging (1998-2001), the NRW Enquête Commission "The Situation and Future of Nursing"(2002-2005), and the Expert Commission "Goals of age policy" of the Bertelsmann Foundation (2000-2007).

Professor Dr. Wolfgang Greiner has been Professor of Health Economics and Health Management at Bielefeld University's Faculty of Health Sciences since April 2005. His doctorate in 1998 addressed cost-utility analyses in the health system for the example of kidney and liver transplants. His postdoctoral habilitation in 2004 dealt with disease management from a health economics perspective. He is managing editor of the journal European Journal of Health Economics and a member of the scientific advisory boards of two major German health insurance providers, the Techniker-Krankenkasse and the Deutsche Angestellten-Krankenkasse (DAK). He is also the expert for health economics on the supervisory boards of the Klinikum Region Hannover GmbH, representing the 13 hospitals in the region of Hannover, and the Rehabilitation Centre in Bad Lippspringe.
Professor Dr. Greiner's research specializations are the evaluation of health services, research on the quality of life, health technology assessment, and disease management.

At the Faculty of Health Sciences, Wolfgang Greiner is chair of the appropriation committee, director of the Master's degree programme in Public Health, and liaison officer for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation at Bielefeld University. During the course of his academic career, he has been awarded the Austrian Prize for Health Economics, the Science Prize of Hannover University, and the Medvantis Research Prize.
"This double appointment to such a high profile panel underlines the outstanding status and competence of our Faculty of Health Sciences. I congratulate Professor Doris Schaeffer and Professor Wolfgang Greiner for this exceptional honour and wish them every success with their task," commented Professor Gerhard Sagerer, the Rektor of Bielefeld University.

 According to the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Professor Claudia Hornberg, the appointment of Professor Doris Schaeffer and Professor Wolfgang Greiner to the council of experts reflects the success of the Faculty's underlying concept of focusing on interdisciplinary, problem-oriented health research right from its foundation. Particular attention is being paid to the effects of demographic and epidemiological changes on the health of the population and on the health system along with the resulting challenges for public health. The interdisciplinary Faculty, founded in 1994 on the model of the internationally long-established Schools of Public Health, continues to be the only faculty of its kind in Germany. It contains eight research units each representing different subdisciplines, thus permitting a comprehensive range of degree programmes. Alongside what has already become the traditional Master's in Public Health, the Faculty also offers a Bachelor's degree programme in Health Communication and – as the only one of its kind in Germany – a postgraduate doctoral programme. Various continuing education options include a distance learning programme in Health Management and the Master of Health Administration.

Further information in the Internet:
Bundesministerium für Gesundheit (in German)