Basic position

The Scientific Medical Alliance for Rehabilitation has the following basic positions

1. Rehabilitation is an important health strategy and must be anchored in all phases and forms of care. Rehabilitation measures make an important contribution to enabling people with health impairments and functional limitations to participate fully in social life and to achieve a good quality of life. In Germany, this is legally anchored in the SGB IX.

2. Rehabilitation always focuses on the individual, which is why rehabilitation goals and measures are always geared to the needs of the rehabilitants and their social environment (context factors). At the same time, however, rehabilitation measures must be in line with the social-legal mandate. This duality between individual goals and general legal requirements must not result in disadvantages to the detriment of the rehabilitee.

3. Indirect medical costs, which are largely due to a reduction in occupational participation, are a major health economic factor in many diseases and are a major focus of rehabilitation medicine interventions. Therefore, effective rehabilitation medicine is extremely relevant to reducing health care costs for society.

4. Health-related rehabilitation must be integrated into the health care system to avoid gaps in care at the interfaces. At the governmental level, this means that a department for health-related rehabilitation is needed in the Ministry of Health. In addition, regular coordination with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and other ministries concerned with rehabilitation issues is essential. Interface problems in individual care between service providers also need to be reduced.

5. Medical and social criteria for starting and stopping rehabilitation must be developed and routinely implemented. In the context of individualized rehabilitation goals, generalization of the duration and scope of rehabilitation is inappropriate. The financing of rehabilitation must be such that all medically necessary, evidence-based therapies can be provided.

6. The quality requirements for rehabilitation must be based on scientific studies and scientific expertise. The use of guidelines based primarily on structural quality does not meet this requirement.

7. In the case of patients with chronic and chronic diseases, rehabilitation cannot be limited to temporary measures; rather, structures for professionally qualified long-term outpatient rehabilitation must be created, involving all service providers in the health care system.

8. Statutory early rehabilitation in hospitals must be introduced nationwide and integrated into the overall concept of rehabilitation. This requires appropriate departments that work in multiprofessional teams according to defined, evidence-based quality criteria and are adequately financed.

9. Rehabilitation must be firmly anchored in medical studies and taught by faculty qualified in rehabilitation. To this end, it is necessary to establish appropriate chairs or professorships at all medical faculties. The integration of rehabilitation research and clinical practice is essential.

10. Research is of vital importance for the further development of medicine. Therefore, the necessary financial, infrastructural and human resources for research in rehabilitation medicine must be ensured. It is necessary to create subject-specific structures in the funding agencies (e.g. German Research Foundation).

11. Rehabilitation must be adequately represented in all clinical guidelines for diseases for which rehabilitation is relevant. This applies to almost all chronic diseases, but also to many acute diseases and surgical interventions. Because of the large number of such guidelines, the division of labor among the medical societies must be closely coordinated.

12. Rehabilitation must be available to all who need it. Rehabilitation care requires both low-threshold rehabilitation close to home and highly specialized rehabilitation services for people with complex functional disorders and rare diseases. Increased efforts must be made to provide equal access to rehabilitation for educationally disadvantaged groups and people with language barriers.