How is it possible to provide clinical staff with adequate protection against COVID-19 and at the same time further improve medical quality in the hospital? Frederik Wenz, Medical Director and Member of the Board at the University Hospital in Freiburg explains in this interview with Siemens Healthineers Managing Board Member Christoph Zindel the strategies of the clinic and the extraordinary effort his team is going through to manage the crisis.
Our second guest speaker of the new podcast series with Christoph Zindel is Frederik Wenz, MD and chairman at the University Hospital in Freiburg. The habilitated radiooncologist has been an early advocate of digitalization in healthcare and has strongly encouraged a trustworthy alliance across national borders.
The hospital in Freiburg is one of the largest of its kind in Germany and, due to its geographical location near France and Switzerland, was particularly early in the treatment of COVID-19 patients nationwide. Wenz explains that was because neighboring countries were a few days ahead of them in the course of the pandemic. Due to the way the virus moved across Europe, the hospital and its staff were able to prepare by proactively adapting to the situation. Wenz discusses the key areas that led to the success of their efforts and why digitalization is a major factor in overcoming the situation. In order to reduce the risk of infection through COVID-19 while increasing quality of care for the patient, the University Hospital in Freiburg is focusing on innovative technology in radiology. For example, remote scanning is making it possible to carry out CT or MRI scans from other locations by using specially developed software. These measures limit the contact between hospital staff and patients for mutual protection and reduce the density of people in the workplace to a minimum.
If you want to learn more about how the team around Frederik Wenz is coping with the crisis and why the human factor is so important, listen to this episode of our new podcast series.
