Healthcare is becoming increasingly complex: the increasing number of people receiving services and those requiring care with increasingly complex care needs, expanded fields of tasks and activities, digitalization and technological progress, globalization and demographic change. All of this, combined with continuously increasing demands on healthcare and a simultaneous growing shortage of skilled workers, are challenges that must be addressed promptly and appropriately. This requires the provision of different competency profiles in healthcare.
The academization of health professions, which is being promoted and supported by the reforms of professional laws, is intended to make a significant contribution to this. International comparisons show that the use of academically trained specialists helps to increase the quality of care and patient safety, lower complication and mortality rates, and reduce the readmission rate (so-called revolving door effects).
The long-established association "Akademie der Gesundheit Berlin/Brandenburg eV" (AdG) is founding the Eberswalde University of Health Professions (HGE) in order to offer the primary qualifying dual bachelor's degree programs in nursing and midwifery as a first step, thus closing a gap in the training landscape in the state of Brandenburg. The AdG is thus driving forward the academization efforts in the health professions, which are highly relevant to society as a whole.
When designing the B.Sc. Nursing degree program, current research topics and subjects are incorporated into the content design and orientation. The application-oriented, practice-oriented degree program integrates teaching and learning content on the topics of digitization and technical innovations throughout the entire course of the degree. It prepares students for the individual and needs-based use of innovative technologies in different care settings. Taking into account the changing care structures (increasing outpatient care), the focus module "Community Health Nursing" prepares students for nursing care in the context of municipal health care.
The use of university-qualified nursing professionals is established internationally and is associated with improved care outcomes. In order to be able to provide high-quality care to those in need of care and their relatives and friends in a needs-based manner, nurses with different qualifications - from assistant training to a master's degree - should be employed in direct health care. As early as 2012, the German Council of Science and Humanities [https://www.wissenschaftsrat.de/download/archiv/2411-12.html] called for an academic qualification rate of 10-20% for patient-oriented care. A look at the care landscape shows a current qualification rate of 3.16% or 2.11% in the direct care of people in need of care.
However, to date, the legal framework with regard to tuition fees and exemption from tuition fees has not been applied to nursing studies. This means that important potential for recruiting skilled workers has remained unused. The current legislative proposal to strengthen university nursing training (Nursing Studies Strengthening Act) regulates the financing of the practical part of university nursing training through the training fund and strengthens primary-qualifying university nursing training. The deficiencies expressed by students in particular in the design and establishment of primary-qualifying undergraduate nursing courses will be addressed, an attractive qualification path for the nursing profession will also be made possible for those interested in studying, thus supporting the academization of professional nurses. The change in the law, which is expected as early as the beginning of 2024, will make a contribution to the necessary, required mix of qualifications in nursing, strengthen the academization of nursing and lead to a standardization of primary-qualifying nursing courses.
With the entry into force of the Nursing Professions Act in 2020, the primary qualifying nursing degree program was introduced in addition to professional nursing training. This was a first step towards establishing university nursing training in Germany as a regular feature and following European and international conditions.
For the first time, nursing professionals are legally assigned certain activities:
In addition to merging the nursing professions, the nursing profession reform contributed to the standardization of primary qualification courses and to increasing the proportion of university-trained nursing professionals. Expanded and additional training objectives were specified for academic nursing training.
Sources
ZEFQ 163, 2021: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1865921721000659]
Draft bill (Nursing Studies Strengthening Act - PfStudStG) of the Federal Ministry of Health and the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (2023).
When designing the B.Sc. Midwifery degree program, current research topics and subjects are incorporated into the content design and orientation. The application-oriented, practice-oriented degree program takes current specific needs into account by focusing on "career and development planning", in particular on human resources, leadership and quality management as well as health economics fundamentals. The focus on "sustainability" also conveys the principles of action of sustainability in the areas of economics, ecology and social issues, which must be transferred more strongly to the health system in the future. In the 2021 Sustainability Report, the Federal Ministry of Health also emphasizes that climate and environmental aspects must be adequately represented in the various areas of the health system in order to increase resource efficiency more.
Based on the professional reform, midwife training will be converted into a university degree. Therefore, from 2023 onwards, midwives will only be trained academically. Germany is thus the last EU member state to follow the WHO's recommendations to structure midwife training at university level. The midwifery school of the sponsoring association AdG will run the old-law training course "Midwifery and Obstetric Nurse", which was last started in autumn 2022, until successful completion and, with the establishment of the HGE, will gradually convert the expiring training course into an academic course.