What exactly is … a hospital cluster?

Fresenius Helios has grouped its roughly 80 hospitals in Germany into 21 clusters. A cluster contains an average of three to four hospitals in a region that work closely together. These include smaller local hospitals, specialized hospitals, and large centers for complex treatment.

The aim is to deliver patient care while further enhancing medical quality and efficiency. Each hospital in a cluster focuses on its own field of specialization. Complex, demanding procedures are performed in centers with a great deal of experience, with other hospitals providing care closer to home. The sharing of expertise, equipment, and infrastructure alongside close cooperation between the medical departments make it possible to provide well-coordinated and high-quality care. At the same time, duplicate structures are avoided. This allows patients to be treated where they can receive the best care.

The clusters also include more than 200 medical care centers (known as MVZs in Germany) managed by Helios. These are outpatient clinics for examinations and treatments that do not require a hospital stay. Close integration between hospitals and MVZs is designed to enable better coordination of appointments, diagnoses, and therapies while also improving treatment processes. Digital services, such as video consultations and the electronic sharing of important findings, also make cooperation easier.

By forming clusters, Helios is adopting key elements of hospital reform in Germany at an early stage. The aim of the reform is to connect care structures more closely with one another in order to raise quality and improve efficiency in care settings. This is designed to ensure that high-quality care is delivered throughout Germany in the long term.