[The Preventive Home Visit as a Preventive Intervention to Reach the Elderly--Effectiveness and Cost-Effectiveness of Different Ways of Approach]. / Der präventive Hausbesuch als zugehende Präventionsmaßnahme im Alter--Effektivität und Kosteneffektivität von Zugangswegen.

The aim of the study was a systematical further development of targeted approaches. Research questions were how elderly women and men could be motivated to participate in a preventive intervention and by which approaches elderly with different health risks could be reached. In several stages a specific motivational material was developed. Afterwards two different approaches to the elderly (general practice, health insurance) were tested and evaluated considering its (cost) effectiveness.

[Quality assurance in physiotherapeutic management: a gender-based analysis of health insurance data]. / Qualitätssicherung in der physiotherapeutischen Versorgung: eine geschlechterbezogene Analyse von Krankenkassendaten.

PURPOSE: Studies on the gender equivalence of health-care reveal differences in the handling of men and women that cannot be justified medically. This contribution analyses, for the example of physiotherapeutic management, whether a gender bias, as found for other medical fields, also exists in the provision of remedial interventions. METHODS: On the basis of the prescription data from a health insurance company (Gmünder Ersatzkasse, GEK), a gender-differential analysis of physiotherapy was undertaken. Prescription data for medications in the year 2005 were evaluated, differentiated according to the type of prescribed treatment, the age and gender of the insured person and the prescribing specialist group. Random samples were taken from the medicament prescriptions for further analyses. RESULTS: The analysis of prescription data revealed that, of the 1.6 million insured persons, 16.1% of the women (absolute: 119,354) and 11.7%of the men (absolute: 101,002) received at least one prescription for physiotherapy, the average age of all the insured persons receiving prescriptions for physiotherapeutic measures was 46 years for both sexes. Differential evaluation showed that women received a follow-on prescription slightly more frequently and that the number of treatment units per prescription was higher. Differences were also seen in the forms of the prescribed treatments. The data reveal a gender bias in physiotherapeutic management that can be explained by a differing compliance behaviour of the patient and prescribing behaviour of the physician. CONCLUSIONS: Accordingly, quality deficits also occur in the field of remedial interventions as a result of a gender bias, as has also been documented in other fields of medical management, especially with regard to the provision of medicaments.