About gesund.bund.de

gesund.bund.de aims to provide reliable and understandable information about health. The services are intended to promote citizens’ health competence and self-determination. To this end, gesund.bund.de provides important information about health issues, clinical pictures, and treatment options based on selected scientific and evidence-based sources.

Quality-assured, neutral and understandable health information

More and more citizens are turning to the internet to look for information on clinical pictures or health issues. The search results often determine whether and which doctor a citizen visits. This poses risks as the quality of the sources on which the search results are based varies and cannot always be easily assessed: alongside the information that is based on scientifically established sources, the internet also provides a huge amount of false and misleading information, shaped, for example, by commercial interests.

In fulfilling its public mandate to provide information, gesund.bund.de acts as a reliable advisory service for citizens. The basic information provided by gesund.bund.de can and should not replace the many private media offerings on the internet, but instead supplement them.

gesund.bund.de provides information about the following topics, for example:

• clinical pictures and their symptoms
• medical services for prevention, diagnostics, and treatment
• healthcare services
• structure of the healthcare system
• healthy living
• care and care benefits
• health and care insurance benefits
• electronic patient records
• other digital services in the health system
• patient rights
• service topics relating to the health system

As a state health portal, gesund.bund.de helps citizens understand their own health and correctly assess medical services for prevention, diagnosis and treatment. To this end, the portal offers quality-assured, independent and generally understandable health information. The available healthcare services and connections within the health system are also communicated clearly and transparently: with detailed and practical information, such as on health and care insurance benefits.

In summary, gesund.bund.de offers a range of topics aimed at citizens who are generally interested in health matters as well as those who are looking for reliable information about a particular condition. In addition, we – the publisher and the operators of the portal – want our content to support health professionals, such as doctors or nursing staff, when providing consultations and information.

What gesund.bund.de cannot do

gesund.bund.de does not provide citizens with personal advice. Doctors’ visits and personal consultations with doctors and in professional healthcare institutions can and should not be replaced by the information provided on gesund.bund.de. We expressly warn against self-diagnosis.

The symptoms of different conditions can be very similar and should be assessed by healthcare professionals. Medical advice should also be obtained when considering suitable treatments for conditions or symptoms.

How to find content on gesund.bund.de

An overview of the content can be found on the homepage of the portal gesund.bund.de. The page has a navigation menu with a search window that enables citizens to quickly, easily, and reliably find the information they are looking for. Textual information is explained by graphical representations and videos round off the topic coverage. Many pages on gesund.bund.de have links to the websites of healthcare providers to make it easier for citizens to find more detailed information.

Content creation

Portal editorial team

The gesund.bund.de editorial team that creates the content consists of a permanent core of editors with academic expertise in healthcare. These comprise qualified physicians as well as specialist editors with a medical and natural science background (in biology and neuroscience among other fields).

Partners

The gesund.bund.de editorial team creates scientifically based, neutral and generally understandable health information for citizens. To fully meet this high quality standard, it works closely with selected scientific institutions (partners).

More information about gesund.bund.de’s partners can be obtained from:

• The Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (Institut für Qualität und Wirtschaftlichkeit im Gesundheitswesen – IQWiG)
• The Cancer Information Service of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
• The Robert Koch Institute (RKI)
• The Independent Patient Advice Service for Germany (UPD)

Services

gesund.bund.de provides various search functions in cooperation with service partners, which you can find out more about here:

• “Was hab’ ich?” gemeinnützige GmbH
• German Hospital Directory (German Hospital TrustCenter and Information Processing GmbH – DKTIG)
• National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung – KBV)

The references to specialist doctors, hospitals and other healthcare institutions are intended to help citizens select possible points of contact for further questions. The related links and telephone numbers are solely provided as a service. The healthcare participants indicated provide all services, e.g. consultations, independently and under their own responsibility. Due to the high number of medical and other services provided within the healthcare system, the list on gesund.bund.de is non-exhaustive and regularly updated.

Publisher

The gesund.bund.de health portal is an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Health, which also acts as the publisher and bears legal responsibility for all portal content. No commercial or political interests are pursued through the publication of the health portal. The gesund.bund.de editorial staff are not Federal Ministry of Health employees. The organizational separation means that they create the content without political influence. This ensures that the health-related information on the gesund.bund.de portal is objective and neutral.

Further information about quality assurance requirements on gesund.bund.de can be found here: Quality assurance.

How gesund.bund.de is financed

gesund.bund.de is a Federal Ministry of Health initiative. The technical operation, all editorial work, and other services are exclusively financed by Federal Ministry of Health resources. The portal is free of advertising.

Body responsible for gesund.bund.de

gesund.bund.de is an information service from the Federal Ministry of Health, which is performing its responsibility to inform citizens about the topic of health. The Federal Ministry of Health is responsible for its own content on the portal.

In the case of any links to information and web services from other healthcare institutions, these institutions are responsible for their own content.