Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Deutsches Herzzentrum Berlin – Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts (DHZB) are merging their cardiovascular services to form the Deutsches Herzzentrum der Charité (DHZC). The DHZC delivers care and undertakes research and teaching on three Charité campuses: Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Campus Charité Mitte and Campus Benjamin Franklin. It is structured around eight departments and institutes with around 2,500 employees and 470 beds. This will create one of the largest cardiac centres in Europe to serve patients of all ages suffering from cardiovascular disease.

As a joint centre of the Charité and the Stiftung DHZB (Foundation), the DHZC is being established as an organisational unit of the Charité that has extensive strategic and operational autonomy in terms of patient care and is an integral part of the Charité faculty in the areas of research and teaching. It will have its own DHZC board and is overseen by a separate DHZC governing body. The DHZC Board manages all its operational and strategic affairs. Its inaugural members are the Medical Director Prof. Dr Volkmar Falk (Chair), the Deputy Medical Director Prof. Dr Ulf Landmesser, the Commercial Director Dr Rolf Zettl and the Director of Nursing Sebastian Dienst. The governing body is formed by an equal number of members designated by the Charité and the DHZB Foundation. It supervises the activities and performance of the DHZC Board. Its inaugural members are the Charité Chairman of the Board, Prof. Dr Heyo K. Kroemer (Chair) and the Chairman of the Board of the DHZB Foundation, Prof. Dr Hans Maier, as well as two further representatives from each of the two institutions.

New hospital building on the Campus Virchow-Klinikum
The DHZC will include a new construction on the Campus Virchow-Klinikum, which is scheduled for completion by 2028. It will have 20 operating theatres, hybrid rooms and cardiac catheterisation laboratories, as well as 320 beds and 30,000 square metres of floor space. The new building will also house the Emergency Department and sterile supplies services for the entire campus. Even after completion of the new building, large cardiology departments will continue to deliver DHZC services at Benjamin Franklin Campus and the Campus Charité Mitte.

Building on the size and expertise of the two merging partners, the DHZC will strive to deliver a leading international heart centre that will set new standards in patient care, research and teaching, infrastructure and logistics. It will invest in its people, creating an attractive working environment and fostering opportunities for personal and professional development.

Research will focus on prevention, imageguided therapy, precision medicine, peri-operative medicine and the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence. A focus on further development of innovative and minimally invasive therapy approaches underline the strongly translational approach of clinical research at the DHZC.

A new chapter for the DHZB Foundation
The Stiftung Deutsches Herzzentrum Berlin (DHZB Foundation) will transfer the operations of the former DHZB hospital to Charité, but will continue to exist as a foundation and will continue to help shape the DHZC strategically and operationally through co-determination in the DHZC Governing Body. The foundation will focus its own operations on education and training and the promotion of research and development in the field of heart disease. All cardiovascular educational offers will be combined under the umbrella of the future DHZB Academy. To foster innovation, the foundation will be proactively involved in promoting and supporting spin-offs and start-ups in cardiovascular medicine.