BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - The new government comparison portal for clinics in Germany, the so-called Clinic Atlas, is to be made clearer and easier to understand. "We are subjecting the Clinic Atlas to a comprehensive update and making it much easier for patients to understand," Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach told the Rheinische Post newspaper (Wednesday). Instead of the current 23,000 different procedures, the new version should "initially show how good each hospital is for the 20 most important procedures". To this end, groups of diseases are to be summarized.

According to the SPD politician, the clinic atlas will now work as follows: "Patients will be guided on the homepage via larger tiles with general terms such as cancer, heart or bones and joints. Behind this, we then break down individual diseases and operations such as bowel cancer, breast cancer, stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, bypass and stent operations or the use of artificial knee and hip joints."

The hospital atlas is intended to provide information on the services and treatment quality of around 1,700 hospitals in Germany. For comparison purposes, the number of cases per year for each treatment is shown in a speedometer display. "In this way, the hospital atlas makes it clear to everyone why we so urgently need hospital reform. We should only leave complicated procedures to those with sufficient experience," said Lauterbach.

The hospital atlas has been available online since mid-May and, according to the minister, the new version will be available in a few days. The portal has been criticized by the state health ministers, among others, due to the partly outdated data basis.

Lauterbach once again rejected the criticism. "For the most part, it is unjustified. The treatment data used, which is based on 16 million insured persons, is correct. If the data had been wrong, I would have taken the atlas offline," he said. Nevertheless, the debate had shown that the atlas was too complex for laypeople./vrb/DP/zb