[From cross-sectoral care to sector-independent care]

For decades the healthcare treatment has persisted in the rigid boundaries of sectoral provision of services. Patients are all too often left to fall by the wayside, as loss of information and deficits in agreement between sectors are more often the rule than the exception. Healthcare policies have previously attempted to improve the services with a multitude of compartmentalized centralistic interventions: due to this the rules of the game for outpatient and inpatient care have continuously developed divergently; however, hospitals and the panel physician treatment are faced with a deficiency of specialized personnel, increasing demands on quality and a great pressure of adaptation to develop the services even further. This offers the chance for a reorientation of care, independent of the previous sectoral boundaries but oriented treatment processes for the patients with defined treatment commissions and responsibilities for the coordination. The planning and safeguarding of treatment are cross-sectoral at a regional level. The latitude for innovative treatment solutions must be clearly extended beyond the innovation fund in order to adapt the healthcare to the altered requirements.