The ESDM currently focuses on 3 fields of activity.

Good vascular care for all

Every person has the right to highly qualified, modern medicine. But people living in structurally weak regions have hardly any access to high-performance medicine. This is reflected in different morbidity rates compared to metropolitan areas.

The ESDM works closely with the Brandenburg Medical School (MHB), which was founded in 2014. The MHB with its sites in Brandenburg an der Havel and Neuruppin has set itself the task of bringing university medicine to a rural region. This is linked to the training of medical students and young doctors, who are to be retained in the region. The University Department of Angiology at the Center for Internal Medicine I at MHB is nationally and internationally recognized. The distances for patients with vascular diseases from the general practitioner to the respective vascular specialist are to be shortened, thus improving the vascular medical care situation.

Scientific work

The ESDM participates in the financing and projecting of scientific studies. For example, a European amputation registry is to be created together with the professional organizations German Society of Cardiology (DGK) and German Society of Angiology (DGA). To avoid any unnecessary amputation in the long term, it is important to collect data on where, why, how many and which amputations are performed. Improved care and prevention options result from root cause analysis. The fact that such a register is maintained and used by several countries creates a large, naturally anonymized, scientific database, combined with a comparatively faster gain in knowledge than with purely national registers.

In this context, health care research is an important concern of the ESDM: Problem-oriented data on the course of the disease and diagnosis, treatment, care and aftercare are collected. This will make it possible to develop new concepts for appropriate health care that takes population trends into account. This involves, for example, improved workflows, appropriate treatment pathways and the creation of networks in which physicians in private practice and clinicians with different specializations are there for the patient. Ultimately, this promotes high quality medical care for sick people under everyday conditions.

Migration and immigration

The influx of refugees worldwide and the immigration of people to Europe and Germany pose new challenges for healthcare systems. This is not just a matter of caring for people with diseases that have hardly been relevant in this country up to now. It is important to solve seemingly trivial problems such as overcoming communication barriers.

Thus, an important project of the ESDM is the “Blue Book of Migration Medicine”, a translation aid for patients from other countries and their treating physicians as well as nursing staff. Using pictograms, supplemented by questions and answers in Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Kurdish, Russian and German, medical phrasebooks make it easier to communicate with people from the relevant regions when no interpreter is available. More “Blue Books” are planned for pediatrics and other areas of medicine. The ESDM would like to make it possible for these phrasebooks to be distributed free of charge to clinics.

Migration takes place not only where people arrive, but already where they leave their homes. The ESDM believes it is right and important to help solve medical problems in other countries.

Another project is therefore to improve the health of women in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, a gestational diabetes registry and a preeclampsia registry will be established in collaboration with the Princess Christian Maternity Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Gestational diabetes is a diabetes condition during pregnancy that can put both mother and baby at risk. Preeclampsia is a form of arterial hypertension in pregnancy with the risk of vascular complications and even failure of individual organs. The goal is to reduce maternal mortality. To this end, a standardized training and education program for study nurses and for female residents is to be established.