The healthcare sector is under pressure as a result of the combination of demographic developments and skilled worker shortages. This issue of BWP looks at a highly dynamic occupational field. It examines, on the one hand, how skilled workers can be acquired and trained in the healthcare professions, focusing both on the medical and technical skills that need to be taught and on the social and communicative competencies becoming increasingly important to interprofessional collaboration. On the other hand, it explores how structurally robust this occupational field is in terms of meeting the future challenges. How can task and development prospects be shaped in a way which increases the attractiveness of the occupational field and leads to the acquisition and retention of more qualified skilled workers?
Germany’s healthcare system is ailing. At the very least, it is facing major challenges. In the wake of demographic developments, the population’s treatment needs are growing and coordination between various care areas is becoming ever more complex, while the sector is seeing an increasing shortage of personnel at the same time. How can high quality healthcare be ensured in such a context? Which obstacles in the healthcare system need to be tackled? What is the role played by the digital transformation within this process, and how must specialist staff in the healthcare professions be trained? Dr. Katja Vonhoff provides responses to these and other questions in this interview.
The German healthcare system is experiencing a shift and faces major challenges, particularly as a result of demographic development, a shortage of qualified skilled workers, and economic and technological changes. This has an impact on a number of non-academic healthcare professions. Which professions are affected, and what vocational education and training pathways are required for their training? This article provides a summary of the heterogeneous training landscape in the healthcare system and outlines some reforms which have already been instigated.
The introduction of nationally standardised nursing assistant training has created a new generalist auxiliary occupation in the nursing sector, which then required a recalibration of tasks in the nursing team and of the associated qualifications mix. New development prospects for nursing staff without formal training and for nursing assistants have also emerged as a result of aspects such as statutory regulations relating to permeability. This article conceptually analyses the opportunities this brings for members of the profession and for nursing care overall.
Wolfgang von Gahlen-Hoops; Jutta Busch; Katharina H. Tolksdorf
Despite initial regulatory policy stipulations, interprofessional teaching and learning-in-training in the healthcare professions has not yet become universally established in Germany. A framework curriculum to promote competencies for interprofessional collaboration in nursing training was developed and piloted as part of the interEdu project. This article presents the background to the project and experiences so far.
Patrizia Salzmann; Andrea Carla Volpe; Maria-Luisa Schmitz
Communication between medical and nursing staff at hospitals is increasingly digital. The aim of information and communication technologies such as clinical information systems is to help both professional groups to work more efficiently and to support improved communication. At the same time, using these systems is demanding and may lead to additional strain and stress in everyday working routines. For this reason, both doctors and nurses require digital competencies in order to ensure the continuity of patient care and to avoid treatment errors. This article analyses observed situations of digital interprofessional communication in Swiss hospitals and shows key competency requirements and technology-related stresses from a nursing perspective.
The gap between the supply of and demand for nursing staff has been growing in Switzerland for over 20 years. An initiative aimed at securing nursing care was approved in a people’s referendum against the background of the coronavirus pandemic. This article looks at the background to the initiative and describes impressions from the first year of implementation.
Marie Wagner; Birgit Schneider; Martyna Biedrzycka- Schmidberger
Inter-company training plays a key part in training skilled workers. New competencies are moving into the spotlight due to digitalisation and the networking of processes in craft trade occupations in the healthcare sector. This article illustrates which training concepts are being developed for this purpose in inter-company training centres. It offers insights into four projects funded as part of the INex-ÜBA programme.
Interpersonal interactions in the everyday working lives of medical assistants often impose high socio-emotional demands on them. In order to prevent overload and stress situations, medical assistants should learn how to cope with these requirements effectively whilst they are still trainees. The article uses a trainee questionnaire to investigate the extent to which companies providing training address the topics of interpersonal relations, good communication and dealing with emotions within the team, and the degree to which this correlates with training satisfaction.
Qualified nurses assume a broad spectrum of professional tasks which extends beyond the provision of direct nursing care to patients. They also work in task areas involving an investigative, advisory, organisational or reporting role. Against this background, this article examines the extent to which trainees perceive these types of tasks to be potential nursing working areas.
Training in the occupation of qualified dental employee was comprehensively reformed in 2022. The aims of this modernisation were to adjust current requirements within the occupational profile and to structure the examination in a practice-oriented way. For this reason, the North Rhine Chamber of Dentists set itself the goal of conducting the practical element of the examination in dental surgeries rather than at vocational colleges. This article describes the associated challenges and initial experiences.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has left its mark on everyday life within a short space of time and has also become a firmly established part of schools and teaching. In educational practice, the question is therefore no longer whether, but how, AI should be deployed in the classroom. This article uses Stadthagen Technical School as an example to show how potential offered by generative AI can, in combination with a changed learning culture, be used to beneficial effect.
Annual rankings mean that training occupations governed by the Vocational Training Act and by the Crafts and Trades Regulation Code with the most new contracts receive a lot of public attention. By way of contrast, occupations with very low trainee numbers receive significantly less. This article uses a data evaluation to illustrate the phenomenon of “micro-occupations” and examines how such training occupations should be statistically categorised in the German training system and which occupations are part of this group. Against this backdrop, it focuses on their significance and on potential starting points for a forward-looking approach to micro-occupations.
The decision to pursue training in this occupation lays the foundation for a wide range of career pathways, including progression towards qualification as a tax consultant. An affinity for digital working methods is becoming increasingly important alongside an excellent understanding of numbers and attention to detail. The profile describes the key tasks, presents current training figures, and arrives at the conclusion that qualified tax assistants are often very satisfied with their training.
The last Board Meeting of the year was chaired by INA MAUSOLF, representative of the federal states. Consultations mainly centred on the current situation on the training places market, on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in BIBB programmes and programme work, on the new Board Recommendation regarding partial qualifications, and on a benchmark for the introduction of new training regulations pursuant to § 66 BBiG or § 42r HwO.