GER
Cohort 4
Thorsten Langer
Professor, Director Social Pediatric Center, Children's Hospital Freiburg, Germany
University of Freiburg, Medical Center
leadership vision
In this time of rapid change and polycrisis leaders with a clinical background should take more leadership responsiblity in order to co-create the future healthcare system. Digitalization, e.g. offers great opportunities for better care but also poses great risks for growing inequalities. Thinking ahead and involving patients and colleagues in co-creative ways seems to me to be the way to go.
my story
My cohort started in 2021 in the middle of the pandemic.
Instead of joining an in-person retreat at the Schloss in Salzburg, we met online for the first year. As this period was very much characterized by isolation, these meetings turned out to be sources of great inspiration and mutual support among other leaders. This character has only increased since we also meet in person and work together. From the fist meeting I wouldn't want to miss SCIANA. The trust, the different perspectives, the international level make SCIANA one of the most important resources for my work.
about me
Thorsten Langer, M.D. is a child neurologist and healthcare researcher. In his clinical work, he is the Director of the Socialpediatric Center at Children's Hospital Freiburg, Germany and leads an interdisciplinary team which provides specialized care for children with chronic conditions and supports their caregivers. Additionally, he serves as Deputy Director of the Department for Neuropediatrics and Muscular Disorders at the University of Freiburg.
In his research, Thorsten leads an interdisciplinary research group focusing on the system of care delivery and the organization of care. The group has a particular interest for the care for pediatric patients with chronic complex conditions, families with limited German proficiency requiring interpreting assistance and health inequalities. Among other projects, one research consortium with partners from Italy and Canada lead by Thorsten explores the challenges that adolescents with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) face when transitioning from pediatric to adult healthcare systems.
Looking back, Thorsten has been challenged and fascinated by the question how the professional medical expertise and the human, existential needs of patients and their families could be better integrated since he was a medical student. Over the years, he has initiated numerous projects aiming at improving the quality of communication with patients and among caregivers. For instance, he has been training clinicians how to better collaborate with professional interpreters and developed and evaluated a case management program for patients with a rare neuromuscular condition.
At the current stage of his career, new leadership roles offer promising opportunities to help improve our system of care to make it more inclusive (especially for children and young people), more patient-centered, more efficient, more collaborative and more resilient. However, health organizations face huge challenges considering the state of perma- and polycrisis. As there is no script to lead change of this complexity, Thorsten tries to lead on a systems level by bringing together the clinical expertises of clinicians, the scientific evidences from researchers, the patients' perspectives and the perspectives of policy makers in order to create innovative, effective and sustainable solutions.
Publications
www.research-for-children.de/groups/langer/; www.growdmd.org
Meet the Partners
Sciana: The Health Leaders Network is a programme supported jointly by the Health Foundation (UK), Careum (CH) and the Bosch Health Campus (DE) in collaboration with Salzburg Global Seminar.
