[Empowerment for our patients : Innovation in everyday urology]

Patient empowerment includes measures that promote their autonomy and self-determination in the physician-patient relationship. In addition to successful medical treatment, goals include long-term treatment satisfaction and the best possible quality of life for the patients and their social environment. Various initiatives and projects from German urology are already used to empower our patients. Entscheidungshilfe Prostatakrebs (decision aid for prostate cancer) and the German language decision aid for advanced bladder cancer and for the choice of urinary diversion are implemented under the umbrella of the PatientenAkademie (patient academy) of German Urologists. With more than 12,000 users, Entscheidungshilfe Prostatakrebs is very well established in urological care in Germany. The randomized evaluation study with planned 1200 participants is close to the successful completion of recruitment. Another project from the German urology sector is the project "antiCoagulation Help App for SurgERy" (CHASER). The aim is to develop a smartphone-based decision aid for the perioperative management of patients undergoing antithrombotic therapy. Online support groups can also contribute to empowerment and have been analyzed systematically for prostate cancer patients. A large randomized study on this topic is currently in preparation. Continuing advances in digitalization can thus provide us with useful support in order to provide individual information to our patients. The German Urological Association and its PatientenAkademie have been committed to this for many years.