Construction work on the new buildings may now begin on the basis of this development plan. The new buildings are the Healthcare University of Applied Sciences (hsg), the canteen and library buildings, the new European Protein Research Centre (PURE) and a building for institutions belonging to the NRW Health Ministry including the State Centre for Healthcare, which is currently still located across the road in the BioMedical Science Park Bochum. In addition to the core area of the Healthcare Campus, other areas have also been set aside for possible extensions.

The development plan is based on the design by the architects Leon, Wohlhage, Wernik from Berlin who won the design competition held in the year 2010. The key elements of this urban planning design with its campus terrace area, clearly defined compact buildings, the green areas around them and the internal development of the site have all been implemented in the development plan. The public were involved at various stages throughout the procedure which included an open public meeting in June 2010.

Possible buildings at the Healthcare Campus NRW

Finally, on 1 March 2012, the council was able to pass Development Plan 286 d – Healthcare Campus NRW. The City of Bochum then agreed to the building application for the Healthcare University of Applied Sciences in the same month. In advance of this, the site had already been cleared of any damage due to mining subsidence and preparations for developing the campus site had also been carried out. An access road with two roundabouts will connect the two sites of the Healthcare Campus and the BioMedical Science Park with each other. A new tram station for the “Campusline” U35 will also create attractive links to the main railway station and the University Campus.

This all means that the complex legal requirements are running exactly on schedule, something which does not always go without saying. Construction work will begin before the summer so the Healthcare University of Applied Sciences (hsg) can get started for the winter semester 2014 as planned.

“The Bergmannsheil is in a better position than ever before – as regards the buildings as well as from a medical and economic point of view,” commented Xaver Schmidt, the Chairman of the Supervisory Board. “You, Mr Kick, played a decisive role in this,” Schmidt referred to the many new buildings which were planned and constructed under Mr Kick’s responsibility, with the most comprehensive construction work amounting to a volume of over 100 million Euros currently still underway. This new building comprises wards and a specialist wing including a new accident and emergency section, modern operating theatres, intensive wards and specialist departments.

Mr Kick summed up by saying: “I am very grateful for the trust that you have put in me and for the fact that I was allowed to work for this clinic for more than two decades. I will always feel very close to the clinic.” His successor will be Clemens Maurer who was formerly employed as the Managing Director of the Katholische Klinikum Duisburg gGmbH.

The European Protein Research Unit Ruhr within Europe (PURE), which was founded at the Ruhr University Bochum with support from the NRW Ministry for Innovation, Science and Research, has appointed Priv.-Doz. Dr. Anke Reinacher-Schick as Professor for clinical and translational gastroenterological oncology (W2-analog). The 44 year old is a specialist in internal medicine as well as in haematology / internal oncology. She has been employed at the Knappschaftskrankenhaus as a senior physician since 2004.

The professorship for haematology and stem cell transplants (W2-analog) was received by Prof. Dr. Roland Schroers who has been working as a senior physician at the medical clinic of the Knappschaftskrankenhaus since 2008. The focus of his current scientific and clinical work is on modern diagnosis and therapy procedures for lymphoma and related haematological diseases. He has been heading the stem cell transplant unit at the Knappschaftskrankenhaus since 2010.

At the beginning of March 2012, the speech therapy course at the Healthcare University of Applied Sciences (hsg) and the Department of Language and Communication at the Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences at the Technical University Dortmund (TU) joined together to form the Sprach-GeBiTe Ruhr association. The association aims to develop support for up and coming scientists and to jointly apply for funding from the appropriate bodies.

The association is being headed by the two initiators, Prof. Dr. Ute Ritterfeld. Professor for Language and Communication at the Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences at the TU Dortmund, and Prof. Dr. Kerstin Bilda, Head of the Speech Therapy course at the hsg.

Bilda tells us: “Our cooperation in the field of speech therapy/logopaedics is unique in Germany. This cooperation between the University of Applied Sciences and the University is essential so we can bundle our research competences and above all so we can educate the next generation of academically qualified specialists in speech therapy/logopaedics. Both of the universities are in a unique position to continue developing the interdisciplinary profile of this subject at a high scientific level.

“The more such establishments network with each other, the more the Ruhr metropolis will gain in visibility as a scientific location. The Sprach-GeBiTe association is a very good example of this”, explains Prof. Dr. Ursula Gather, Principal of the TU Dortmund.

The new association is open for new research partners and aims to contribute towards regional networking as well as to promote the idea of the Healthcare Campus North Rhine-Westphalia”, says hsg President Prof. Dr. Anne Friedrichs. The name of the “Sprach-GeBiTe Ruhr” is an acronym which puts together the first two letters from the three most important areas of speech therapy/logopaedics in the German words for health, education and technology to form the word GeBiTe.

The Federal Employment Agency will also be available to advise visitors and internet portals such as Kliniken.de and Pflegeleidensschaft.de will be presenting their comprehensive range of jobs at the fair too. Speed-jobbing, application document checks and lectures will form a bridge between the exhibitors and the visitors. Entry to the fair is free.

“In posters, ecards and a video clip for cinemas we show the reasons why young and motivated people study nursing care at the hsg”, explains the hsg President Prof. Dr. Anne Friedrichs. The image campaign for the degree course in nursing care will run until the middle of June 2012. The campaign will be visible in adverts and posters, City Light posters, postcards, ecards and on a tram. For at least two months a video clip ad will also run in cinemas in Bochum and neighbouring cities.

Vera Evelt, Head of Marketing at the hsg: “The main characters in our campaign our four hsg-nursing care students who explain why they study nursing care at the hsg and how they benefit from it. We have put the focus on the students in this campaign so that school leavers can identify with them. We want to reach young people in the whole Ruhr Region and beyond at the places where they spend their free time, in cafés, pubs, restaurants and the cinema”. You can find more information about the image campaign at:
www.ich-studiere-pflege.de

Unfortunately there were very few publications on this topic which meant significant questions remained unanswered: who buys medicaments on the internet? How many online customers are there? Why are people reluctant to go to a normal pharmacy? She developed a suitable questionnaire together with her professor.

Online customers were contacted by email and Claudia Naumann approached the walk-in customers at the store itself. There was a very good response and the results were surprising: a significant proportion of people preferred the pharmacy store and this was true for the younger customers as well. Even the online customers saw many advantages in buying medicaments from a store and were quite critical of ordering on the internet: prescriptions have to be sent in, postage and packaging costs balance out the cheaper purchase prices and the quality of advice is worse than in a normal pharmacy. “People were also afraid of receiving counterfeit medicaments or cheap copies”, Claudia Naumann explains.

From the numerous replies that she received the student then derived key recommendations for action for the Alte Apotheke. These included extending the courier service for elderly people and for people with limited mobility and introducing a loyalty points and reward system. “I have implemented Ms Naumann’s recommendations and am more than satisfied with the results”, Inka Krude is delighted. Her customers have also reacted positively to the changes so this Bochum pharmacy should remain the oldest company in the city for many years to come.

A new biodatabase points the way to the future: the Medical Proteome Center (MPC) at the Ruhr University Bochum sees people as a whole – from the single cell to the complete organism. The staff at the institute, which is one of the leading establishments in the field of personalised medicine, analyses and identifies proteins. In this way they gain important insights into cellular changes which occur due to diseases.

Until now such a large quantity of data was created that it was just too much to administer sensibly. The CentraXX database, which the MPC now has access to in a collaboration with Kairos GmbH, solves this problem. The aim is to determine all the proteins in a person’s tissue at a predetermined point in time.
These protein patterns are intended to be used as biomarkers to enable comparisons to be made between young and old, healthy and diseased tissue. This will make it possible to recognise the status of diseases better and to develop more targeted treatment methods. CentraXX will make it easier to work with the information gained in this way.

For the first time it is now possible to relate between the patients and their disease and person-specific parameters using logical links via the knowledge database”, says Prof. Dr. Helmut E. Meyer, Head of the MPC. This IT system fulfils two different tasks. Firstly it coordinates all the doctors involved. Patients’ identity details are replaced by pseudonyms here. In addition to that the system helps to decide on the right therapeutic measures to be taken. It also records all the information and thus supplies the knowledge base that is required.

“Ideally this database of facts will grow with every sample that is examined, thus leading to constantly improving support when making therapy decisions”, explains Martin Zünkelar, Managing Director of Kairos. Currently the institute is using the database for two different projects: PROFILE and ParkCHIP, both of them financed by the Ministry for Innovation, Science and Research of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. PROFILE is concerned with acute and chronic liver disease. ParkCHIP on the other hand is developing a test procedure for Parkinson syndrome. This is all about making better early diagnoses, reducing costs in the healthcare sector and, for example, avoiding unnecessary transplants.