What are the major challenges of an important new year? Since 2007, uncertainty is becoming a regular partner in our agenda. In all EU Member States, major elections could change government and policy choices during 2017. The reaction to Brexit is to be measured without actual clear solution. A new elected president in the United-States willing to change world trade regulation, including international relationships within Europe.

In this context, social policy and healthcare system organisations can be shocked by new constraints. We have to propose solutions and not passively suffer from hard decisions. May we repeat that UEHP is an actor of changes, offering an efficient service dedicated to patients, limiting waste and adverse events. An economic regulation must now include quality indicators and performance measurement to assess sustainability in healthcare system. Please read with the highest interest the OECD recommendations recently published. Private sector is engaged in a positive competition to offer the best service, following performance engagement.

To fight waiting lists, to enhance patient mobility, a European perspective is required. We will organise this year an important meeting with the support of the Portuguese Health Minister to discuss of a renewed collaboration between providers, offering the best services to all citizens. We will be the partner of an informed decision including IT in our “smart hospitals”, information is the strongest force we know for a free choice of patients.

Accept the message of all the UEHP Board Members, the Secretary General and all private hospital managers as partners of our association, we wish you the best perspective and success in this challenging year.

“We are using this opportunity to show young people the broad spectrum of the medical and social care professions. And, of course, we want to encourage the lads to consider a career in nursing”, said Friederike Günther, Director of Nursing at the Graz Ragnitz private clinic about the clinic’s participation in Boys’ Day.

The aim of the campaign day is thus not only to offer insights into the world of work of the various professions, but also to share the sense of enjoyment that the professionals experience while at work. The boys taking part also had ample opportunity to ask everyone at the clinic, from theatre nurses and physiotherapists to the male nurses, everything they were itching to know.

And as experts have been forecasting for years staff shortages in the health sector, Boys’ Day is an excellent investment in the future.

As regard to transparency in quality management, private hospital groups have taken the lead with the creation of two institutes, IQM and Qualitätskliniken.de-4QD joined under an umbrella organization, the SIQ foundation for quality management (Stiftung Initiative Qualitätskliniken). The work of the foundation offers a solid base to develop a new model of quality assessment, which might lead to legislation improvements. Today, patients can consult a web platform (qualitätskliniken.de),which includes data of more than 450 private, private-non profit and public hospitals. Data related to quality of medical treatment, patient safety, patient satisfaction, physicians satisfaction, ethics are collected through declarative statements and verify by audits, and a ranking list facilitates the choice of a hospital.

« Quality in Germany is not just a matter of improving patient safety, it is also a powerful tool to regulate the market as the government will have to close about 300 hospitals in a near future. Members of IQM and Qualitätskliniken.de are better prepared for the upcoming focus on quality, as the government will increasingly establish strong quality specifications for hospitals », declares Thomas Bublitz, director of the German Federation Private Hospitals (BDPK) and Director of both quality management institutes, IQMG (Institut für Qualitätsmanagement) and 4QD-GmbH.

The General Surgery Service of the private hospital HM Sanchinarro in Madrid, directed by Dr Yolanda Quijano and Dr Emilio Vicente, have performed two prophylactic gastrectomies with robotic support on September 7. 2016. These are the first cases of Hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (HDGC) in the world treated with this technique. The intervention lasted 350 minutes and did not require transfusion of blood products.

The patients were mother and daughter and both had an inherited predisposition syndrome to cancer with an autosomal dominant inheritance pattern. Hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (HDGC) is caused by germline mutation of the CDH1 gene. Mutation carriers have a more than 80% lifetime risk of developing gastric cancer as well as an elevated risk of lobular breast cancer. Once an individual has been identified as a healthy career of a disease-causing mutation, the advice is to consider performing prophylactic total gastrectomy regardless of the endoscopy findings.

Robotic surgery system (RSS) was introduced as an advanced platform studied to overcome the technical limitations of conventional laparoscopy with many advantages: articulated movement of the robotic instruments, the elimination of tremor and the 3-D vision.

“ The most interesting aspect of the surgery performed is to have been able to associate two modern concepts that have revolutionized medicine in general and surgery in particular: Preventive surgery and minimally invasive surgery, where robotic surgery is the most important component”, say the experts.

To our knowledge, these patients represent the first cases of HDGC detected by robotic prophylactic gastrectomy in the world. Both patients are actually in good clinical condition.