Therapy concept of fresenius medical care
Similar to our vertically integrated business model (see chart 2.5.1), we take a holistic view of quality when it comes to dialysis therapies and additional services. Our UltraCare brand in North America and our NephroCare brand in the EMEALA (Europe, Middle East, Africa, Latin America) and Asia-Pacific regions represent an integrated therapy concept that has set the standard in our clinics as well as for home dialysis. This concept is based on the following principles:
- Our quality standards for dialysis services focus on providing patients with the best available therapies.
- We use our own high-quality products, pharmaceuticals and procedures in our clinics and for home dialysis patients; these are being continually refined by our research and development team.
- We provide our patients with comprehensive therapy and medical advice from qualified, highly-motivated clinical personnel and physicians.
- We create a safe and pleasant atmosphere for both patients and employees in our clinics.
- We systematically improve our performance and efficiency levels by collecting and comparing our clinical treatment data on an ongoing basis, working according to both external and internal quality standards, and running our clinics in a professional manner.
In line with these principles, specific guidelines apply to our dialysis clinics relating to, for example, patient care hygiene in clinical practice, the design of our clinics, and the purity of water used in treatment. Specialist teams help our staff in the individual countries to implement these standards and ensure they are consistently met. As we aim to provide our patients with comprehensive care, our doctors and dialysis personnel in the clinics are assisted at times by nutrition specialists and social workers. To help patients better understand the issues of living with dialysis, we also provide our own educational material such as films and patient journals, including “PatientLine” in the U.S. and “NephroCare for me” in the EMEALA region.
In North America, the work carried out by various advisory boards helps us to further improve our standards and services. For example, a social work advisory board deals with the psychosocial concerns of patients and designs training programs for our social workers. A similar board for dialysis nurses develops guidelines and procedures for clinical care. Regional and Company-wide medical advisory boards assist us in cooperating with nephrologists to achieve the best outcome for our patients. The patient advisory board is made up of patients from all regions in the U.S. in which we operate clinics. Among other aspects, it advises us on how to make health educational material more readily understandable.
In our International segment, we also maintain a direct dialog with our patients to help us continuously improve our services. In Great Britain, for example, we held a roundtable for the first time last year for this purpose, which will now take place on a regular basis.