EVIDENCE BASED INSIGHT
Driving Sustainability and Creating Value for Patients in Global Healthcare
September 21, 2020 • 4 min read
KATRIN KÖHLER, MSc, MBA • CHARLOTTE STANGE
Fresenius Medical Care has established the Global Sustainability Program to coordinate its strategic efforts for sustainable healthcare. The Global Medical Office plays a central role, focusing on enhancing the patient experience and realizing the promise of value-based care. By sharing information and promoting best practices for quality of care improvements across the company’s regions and functions, the Global Medical Office is driving the coordinated approach necessary for achieving results.
As a worldwide healthcare company, Fresenius Medical Care is committed to improving the lives of patients with chronic illnesses across all stages of their life journey by delivering personalized, reliable, and high-quality care. As societies and markets around the world continue to evolve, the company continues to invest in strategies to drive sustainable development in its global healthcare operations, with a focus on actions that advance patient care and societal goals.
The definition of what it means to be a sustainable company has evolved in the last decades. Companies are challenged to address global concerns while meeting the sustainability requirements of legal and regulatory bodies, capital markets, non-governmental organizations, and changing market environments of great variability. Organizations such as the United Nations have articulated broad ranges of goals for a sustainable world, with health and well-being identified as two of the most pressing global priorities. In addition, there is increasing demand for transparent indicators that characterize a company’s sustainability performance.
To strengthen the integration of strategic sustainability efforts into the company’s global business operations, Fresenius Medical Care introduced the Global Sustainability Program. Addressing both the strengths and challenges of a decentralized business model, the program is supported by the company’s Management Board, and progress is continuously monitored internally in conjunction with assessments by external stakeholders.
FOCUS AREAS IN THE CLINICAL AND QUALITY AGENDA
The company’s Global Medical Office was tasked with leading one of the sustainability program’s key pillars of activity: a focus on patients (Figure 1). Through a range of dedicated medical activities around the world, Fresenius Medical Care’s Clinical and Quality Agenda addresses three key focus areas:
- Global medical strategy and quality data reporting
- Global patient surveys
- Patient grievance processes
Figure 1 | The sustainability program’s quality of care focus
At the core of Fresenius Medical Care’s approach to promoting sustainability is enhancing patient care and giving patients a stronger voice (Figure 2). The company continuously examines how it:
- Impacts healthcare overall
- Contributes to improving the quality of life for patients
- Contributes to increasing access to healthcare
- Contributes to stronger healthcare systems
- Creates value for society
By looking beyond the dialysis treatment and working in close collaboration with clinical experts, researchers, scientists, and caregivers, Fresenius Medical Care constantly works to advance scientific insights into actionable care.
DEFINING QUALITY OF CARE
Within the scope of the sustainability program’s patient care activities, the company focuses on sharing information on best practices in promoting quality of care, continuous quality improvements, and establishing global targets for clinical standards. Implementing these concepts requires effective cross-regional and cross-functional collaboration, with focus areas spanning the continuum of care (Figure 3). Medical teams jointly explore harmonized global standards and respective key performance indicators such as clinical quality parameters, net promoter scores, and patient survey outcomes.
Fresenius Medical Care will continue enhancing sustainability efforts that make a difference for the care of patients, support the company’s role as a trusted partner for healthcare professionals, and contribute to improvements of healthcare systems around the world.
Figure 2 | Enhancing patient care and experience as part of value-based care
SUSTAINABILITY: A GLOBAL IMPERATIVE
In 2015, the United Nations published the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a 17-goal blueprint for building a sustainable world with shared prosperity for all people.1,2 The goals address the challenges the global community faces. Among the key goals are ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being, which are areas of focus in Fresenius Medical Care’s sustainability program.
Meet The Experts
References
- United Nations. Sustainable development agenda. https://www.un.org/ sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/. Accessed June 8, 2020.
- United Nations. Sustainable development goals. https://www.un.org/ sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/. Accessed June 8, 2020.