Germany

The Innovation Fund in Germany was created in 2015 for the period from 2016 to 2019, with the primary aim to improve health care for policyholders and patients in statutory health insurance (SHI). In March 2019, the governing parties have agreed in the coalition agreement that the innovation funding should be continued at least until March 2021 with an annual budget of €200 million.

On behalf of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG), a working group of the Hannover Medical School (MHH) has assessed the treatment outcomes in case of nasoalveolar molding (NAM) for cleft lip and palate. The report was published in February 2019.

During November-December 2018, the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) has introduced an organized screening program for the early detection of cervical cancer and initiated consultation procedure for prostate cancer screening.

In January 2019, the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) has selected four medical topics from citizens' suggestions for scientific assessment in the form of HTA reports (depression in children, mHealth solutions for multiple sclerosis, elephantiasis, and pain in endometriosis).

In January 2019, the Institute for the Hospital Remuneration System (InEK) has published the of medical devices and procedures approved for innovation funding (NUB). Out of 709 applications for drugs and technologies, 180 (25%) received the positive status 1, and 69 of them were the requests for the medical technologies.

At the end of December 2018, the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) decided that optical coherence tomography for the diagnosis and therapy control of several retinal diseases will be covered by the statutory health insurance.

In October of 2018, InEK has published the list of the devices, previously (in 2018) eligible for innovation funding via NUB, and which will be integrated into DRG payment system since 2019. Only two devices will be transferred into the DRG catalogue.

At the end of October of 2018, DIMDI has published the preliminary version of the procedure catalogue for the coming year. MTRC will report about new procedures and other changes included in the catalogue after the release of the official version in the beginning of 2019.

In October 2018, the Austrian HTA body, the Ludwig-Boltzmann Institue (LBI), published the update on the PET/PET-CT topic. The report was done together with the Berlin Technical University.

In July of 2018, the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) has initiated the discussion regarding the establishment of the minimum quantity requirements for the surgical treatment of breast cancer and bronchial carcinoma. As the quality of surgery is directly dependent on the quantity, the number of operations performed at hospital and on the designated surgeon, the objective is to understand the importance of the experience and routine practice of the operations to reach the successful treatment outcomes and to determine a minimum number of operations, which should be performed in hospitals to gain enough experience.

At the end of June of 2018, the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) has commissioned to the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) to provide an update of the Disease Management Program (DMP) for Diabetes Mellitus type 2 in order to perform a systematic research, make a selection of guidelines based on methodological criteria and extract guideline recommendations relevant for the treatment of Diabetes Mellitus type 2. The final report is expected to be released on the 31st of December, 2019.

At the beginning of July of 2018, the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) has published a final report regarding the benefit assessment of allogeneic stem cell transplantation (ASCT) in aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (B-NHL) and in T-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (T-NHL). IQWiG concluded that the benefit of ASCT in B-NHL and T-NHL is unclear for now, as no meaningful studies are available.