Video aid: putting the CARE back into healthcare

Doctors in white coats rush through the corridors, hastily leafing through patient files. A door flies open and they hurry through. Nurses scurry from left to right, carrying medication or food trays, or medical instruments. A shrill sound, a bright light – someone needs help! A nurse runs across the hall to assist. Emergency or not – this is where they are needed right now. Which means someone else has to wait. Welcome to the hospital.

It might not be like this everywhere, but it’s all too often an accurate picture of what goes on in hospitals – that place you go to make you better but where you often end up sitting for hours, or being sent from one doctor to the next. With stress levels rising, hands sweating and mind racing, you wonder whether you’re really getting the care you need.

Time is short

“Fear is the overriding emotion in hospitals,” says Paul Romanski, a specialist in internal medicine and emergency medicine at the Hospital zum Heiligen Geist in Kempen, North Rhine Westphalia. “Patients want more time to ask their questions, less routine consultation and, above all, to be seen, to be taken seriously as human beings.”

But time is short. Fewer medical staff must take care of more patients. The shortage of skilled workers in the healthcare industry is persistent – and the future is bleak.

The shortage in healthcare professionals is growing

Specifically, demographic changes and a rise in the number of chronically ill or multimorbid patients means that more people are in need of care. At the same time, the shortage in healthcare professionals is growing. According to a study by the management consultancy PWC, around 290,000 healthcare jobs went unfilled in Germany in 2022. By 2035, there will be a shortage of around 1.8 million skilled workers, which corresponds to about a third of all jobs. 

Nursing professionals in particular are caught in a vicious circle. The existing staff is bowing under the pressure of a growing workload; they criticise the poor working conditions, a general lack of regard for what they do and inadequate education and training. As a result, an increasing number of people are quitting or are changing professions. Among doctors and nurses with managerial positions alone, just under one in three plans to continue in their current profession until retirement.

The situation is serious – all across Europe

This labour shortage is endangering the future of healthcare – not only in Germany. “All countries in the European region are facing serious challenges in terms of health and care workers,” says a report by the World Health Organization (WHO). Medical staff is ageing and not enough new doctors are being trained – so medical care is suffering overall. 

In France, the shortage of doctors has increased by 50 percent in the past three years alone, according to the WHO. As a result, a growing number of French people have difficulties finding a practice or hospital close to where they live. And around six million French people currently do not have a family GP – almost one in ten.

In England, on the other hand, around 25,000 nurses and midwives in the National Health Service (NHS) resigned during the Covid pandemic. In 2022, there were more than 132,000 vacancies in the UK healthcare sector, an increase of 25 percent compared to the previous year. Among them were 10,000 vacancies for doctors, an increase of 32 percent.

The situation is similar in other European countries. “If action is not taken immediately, the shortage of health workers in the European region could lead to disaster,” the WHO report states – disaster in this sense being serious damage to health, avoidable deaths and the collapse of entire health systems.

The shortage of health professionals is costing human lives worldwide.
Deutsches Ärzteblatt

A similarly grim scenario is emerging worldwide. A Chinese working group used data from various studies and statistics, including from the United Nations, to explore the relationship between healthcare workers and causes of death in 172 countries and regions. Although the number of people working in the healthcare sector increased overall, it did not increase everywhere. Where there were comparatively few skilled workers, such as in Ethiopia or Guinea, people were at greater risk of dying from intestinal infections, diabetes or kidney disease – between 2 and 5 ½ half times more than in regions with the highest staff density. The German medical magazine “Deutsches Ärzteblatt” summarises the situation as follows: "The shortage of health professionals is costing human lives worldwide."

New paths in doctor-patient communication

“It's important to acknowledge this situation. Patients have a right to comprehensive and respectful medical care. We have to find new ways to meet this demand and at the same time relieve the burden on medical professionals,” Romanski demands. He speaks from his own personal motivation.

His experience of working in a hospital and his observations of the plight of staff and patients were what turned the practising physician into an entrepreneur. In collaboration with professional filmmaker Phil Ramcke, Romanski developed the idea of using explainer videos to change the typical doctor's consultation. They then founded MIA Video to do just that. 

Empathetic conversations that focus on the individual needs of the patient are at the heart and soul of medicine.Paul Romanski

The company’s aim is to improve communication between doctor and patient – for example, before an operation or to explain to a patient what they should expect when having a certain kind of examination or undergoing therapy, or what their diagnosis means. This is where the expertise of both founders comes in: Romanski knows which specialist content is important and what patients need to hear. Ramcke translates this knowledge into emphatic films that use simple language and no medical jargon. Patients who watch the videos receive all the information they need before they see the doctor and they can re-watch as many times as they like or even from the comfort of their own home. So when the patient sees the doctor, the time can be used exclusively for questions.

“Empathetic conversations that focus on the individual needs of the patient are at the heart and soul of medicine. Doctors see this as a central aspect of their profession,” Romanski explains. The patient-doctor relationship is just as important as therapy when it comes to truly getting better. “MIA Video gives doctors and patients the opportunity to talk more at length, more personally and on more equal terms,” he says.

Those who fully understand what illness they have been diagnosed with and what therapy is necessary have a better chance of a good recovery.Paul Romanski

When patients watch a video before the consultation, the average time required with the physician can be reduced from 27 to just six minutes. Although the time for the conversation is shorter, it is more valuable, because it can focus exclusively on the patient’s fears, worries and needs. Doctor and patient both benefit from the time saved.

The videos are available in more than 40 languages, so patients can get information in their native language. Romanski believes this is a decisive advantage for patient well-being: “Those who fully understand what illness they have been diagnosed with and what therapy is necessary have a better chance of a good recovery.”

Bureaucracy slows down digital progress

Digital technologies might promise great progress, but in practice the path is arduous; there are many hurdles to introducing innovations in the healthcare industry.