About us 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
Many citizens use the internet to find information about medical conditions and other health-related issues. Alongside the information based on scientifically established sources, the internet also provides a huge amount of false and misleading information, shaped, for example, by commercial interests. The quality of the sources on which the search results are based varies and cannot always be easily assessed. Despite this, reliable sources are particularly important when making decisions that affect your health.
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 supplements the many private media offerings on the internet.
gesund.bund.de provides information about the following topics, for example:
- Structure of the healthcare system
- Service topics relating to the health system
- Patients' rights
- Healthcare services
- Health and long-term care insurance benefits
- Care and care benefits
- Electronic patient records
- Other digital services in the healthcare system
- Healthy living
- Clinical pictures and their symptoms
- Medical services for prevention, diagnostics and treatment
As a state health portal, gesund.bund.de helps people 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 correlations within the health system are also communicated clearly and transparently: with detailed and practical information, such as on health and long-term 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 people with personal advice. Doctors’ visits and personal consultations in professional healthcare institutions can and should not be replaced by the information provided on gesund.bund.de. We expressly warn against self-diagnosis.
As different conditions can have very similar symptoms, these 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 gesund.bund.de portal. 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. To make it easier for people to find more detailed information, many pages on gesund.bund.de provide links to the websites of healthcare providers.
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 and updates scientifically based, neutral and generally understandable health information for citizens. To fully meet this high quality standard, it works closely with selected scientific institutions and recognized partners.
Further information about gesund.bund.de’s partners can be obtained here:
- 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 (Krebsinformationsdienst des Deutschen Krebsforschungszentrums – DKFZ)
- Robert Koch Institute (RKI)
- Independent Patient Advice Service for Germany (UPD)
- North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland Palatinate consumer advice centers
Services
gesund.bund.de provides a range of content in cooperation with service partners, which you can find out more about here:
- “Was hab’ ich?” gemeinnützige GmbH
- National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung – KBV)
- Stiftung Gesundheitswissen
The references to specialist doctors, hospitals and other healthcare institutions are intended to help people select possible points of contact when needing to clear up 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 search results on gesund.bund.de may be non-exhaustive and are regularly updated.
Publisher
The health portal gesund.bund.de is a Federal Ministry of Health initiative. The Ministry both 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. This organizational separation ensures that the health-related information provided on the health portal gesund.bund.de 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
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 thereby 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.