[Chronic wounds--perspective for integrated care]

In Germany more than 4.5 million people are treated for chronic wounds per year with resulting costs for the public health system up to five billion Euro. Within the next 30 years, the demographic development will result in a doubling of these numbers of patients. On the other hand, the social security systems have decreasing resources and are confronted with rising costs of modern medicine. New legislation was designed to limit costs and to enable new ways of cooperation between hospitals and practioners ("Intergrierte Versorgung" = IV) aside of fixed budgets. According to German legislation, the contract is made between practitioners, hospitals, rehabilitation units and homecare companies on the one hand and public health insurance companies on the other hand. When designing special contracts for IV, the strategic interests and expectations of the partners have to be analysed. In these complex models, financial as well as bureaucratic and others aspects of health care are to be considered including quality assessment. In the case of chronic wounds, specific in- and exclusion criteria, duration of the treatment period and clear end-points (treatment success or failure) have to be defined. Optimizing clinical pathways as well as improved process management should be possible with IV. Low-volume contracts with limited duration and well defined clinical features are probably the best way to establish IV for chronic wounds.