A women and children's center at Dresden's University Hospital

Collaboration with Dresden university shifts to innovation in health care delivery

Thursday, February 26, 2009

In 1996, members of the Carl Carus Gustav Faculty of Medicine at the Technical University of Dresden forged an alliance with then-Harvard Medical International. The institution continues to work with PHMI to explore and implement innovations in clinical education. In the past year, the focus of collaboration has expanded to the school’s affiliated teaching hospital, where an initiative is underway to develop the Carus Consilium Sachsen (CCS), a community health care network, with the goal of improving health care delivery in the region of Saxony.

The CCS is being conceived against the backdrop of an aging population, decreasing numbers of health care personnel, and rising costs—all making necessary the creation of new management and health care delivery structures. Through the CCS, the leadership of the University Hospital in Dresden hope to achieve harmony between education, patient care, and health care management, resulting in solutions to address the current issues facing the region and creating vehicles for innovation and measurable quality improvement.

To assist with the development of the CCS network strategy, PHMI has drawn on expert resources within the Partners HealthCare System, including leaders from Partners Community HealthCare, Inc. (PCHI)—the physician network that helps to coordinate the efforts of some 4,500 providers in the Partners system. In September, members of the Dresden leadership team, including University Hospital president and former medical school dean Dr. Michael Albrecht, consulted with senior leaders at Partners HealthCare, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Brigham & Women’s Hospital. This visit set the stage for a PHMI team to conduct a follow-up site visit in Dresden in December. PHMI Vice President Dr. Tom Aretz was joined by Ms. Kelly Hall, Executive Director of Strategic Planning of PCHI, and Dr. Michael Bakerman, PCHI’s Associate Medical Director.

The early years of the HMI-Dresden collaboration brought about a comprehensive reform of the school’s medical curriculum and established regular programs for faculty, academic leaders, and students that remain staples of the alliance. Dresden’s medical and research programs have risen steadily among the ranks of German academic medical institutions.