VEWA as the central software for the implementation of the new law for nursing professions

The Federal Ministry of Health has reformed the nursing professions. The nursing training that was previously regulated separately in the Geriatric Care Act and the Nursing Act will be merged in a new Nursing Profession Act. One focus of this new law is the financing of nursing training, which is controlled by funds at the state level. The Pflegeeausbildungsfonds Niedersachsen GmbH uses the GRÜN VEWA software family.

Reform of the nursing professions

Securing quality care is one of the socio-politically important tasks of the future. The life expectancy of people living in Germany is increasing and, at the same time, the need for care and assistance is increasing. Hence the Federal Ministry of Health enact a reform for nursing professions. Thanks to this reform, nursing training is being modernized and made more attractive. One of the areas affected by the reform is funding. State funds are to finance the newly aligned nursing training.

The practical implementation is the task of the federal states in Germany - also in Lower Saxony. The Ministry for Health, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities in Lower Saxony therefore launched a call for tenders to implement the reform in 2018, which the Lower Saxony Hospital Society, as an association of all hospitals in Lower Saxony, was able to win. The hospital society in turn has with the Nursing Education Fund Lower Saxony GmbH founded a subsidiary that was entrusted by the Ministry of Health, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities with the financial implementation of the new Nursing Act.

Around 3.800 health facilities in Lower Saxony

There are around 3.600 care facilities in Lower Saxony, including hospitals and outpatient and inpatient care services. There are also around 190 nursing schools in addition to these facilities.

All care facilities and hospitals must pay into the fund on the basis of the new law. The amount of the payments depends on many factors - for example the size of the care facility, the personnel costs or the number of trainees.

For the year 2021, this fund has a total volume of over 260 million euros. This fund distributes compensation payments to care facilities, hospitals and nursing schools that employ new trainees. How high the compensation payment is depends on around 50 factors, some of which are also interdependent. The gross personnel costs in the care facilities are just as relevant as the scope of the training, i.e. whether it is full-time or part-time. To determine the training costs in the nursing schools, the academic qualification of the teacher is also relevant.

Implementation of a software

260 million euros in a fund for around 3.800 facilities, deposits and withdrawals coupled with many factors - not possible without software. This was also the opinion of Peter van den Engel, deputy managing director of the Niedersachsen GmbH nursing training fund.

For this reason, Mr. van den Engel visited a trade fair for software providers at which the GRÜN Software Group was also an exhibitor. After talking to Mr van den Engel, he was able to get the GRÜN Software Group as a partner, there GRÜN to the market leaders for solutions for Membership management counts in Germany and in particular can flexibly map complex additional processes. Therefore, the contact between the GRÜN Software Group and the nursing training fund Niedersachsen GmbH intensified.

The nursing training fund Niedersachsen GmbH also came into contact with another federal state that was also looking for a suitable software solution. Therefore, the decision was made relatively quickly on the GRÜN VEWA software family. Lower Saxony also presented VEWA at internal meetings of the federal states and was ultimately able to convince three other federal states to also use VEWA to manage the care facilities and the fund. The advantage for everyone: high cost savings as there are many processes that have to be customized GRÜN were realized, were only partially paid by each federal state.

VEWA as member administration

The GRÜN VEWA software family was successfully introduced at Pflegeeausbildungsfond Niedersachsen GmbH. GRÜN VEWA is used as back office software at the Lower Saxony nursing training fund. In a first step, the 3.800 care facilities, hospitals and nursing schools were created as members. Internet access to the community of Online member administration eVEWA which the institutions can use to store relevant data and the need for trainees.

On the basis of the reported data, VEWA calculates the compensation payments that all nursing facilities, hospitals and nursing schools receive from the fund. The complex and time-consuming calculation was completely digitized and automated in VEWA. The calculated values ​​for the compensation payments are transmitted to the interoperable accounting system via an interface from VEWA. The corresponding booking is made there. The same principle is used with regard to the contribution amounts.

Extensive customizing due to changes in the law

Since the federal law enabled regulations at the state level on many levels, this resulted in new requirements for the software, which had to be implemented quickly and in an agile manner. As an example, the individual differentiation criteria of the financing flat rates, which are very different at the country level, are mentioned by GRÜN had to be implemented ad hoc.

Further expansion

Many additional functions are already planned in VEWA for the Lower Saxony nursing training fund: In addition to a liquidity check, the implementation of the legally prescribed peak compensation is currently being processed. Extensive statistics are also to be generated in VEWA, which are relevant for the state statistical office.