E-prescriptions and digital patient files are coming for everyone
From 2024, pink slips of paper will be a thing of the past for many patients when they go to the pharmacy. Following initial tests, e-prescriptions are set to become standard. Following a legislative decision by the Bundestag, digital patient files will then be introduced from 2025.
After years of delays, electronic prescriptions and digital patient files are to be introduced into widespread everyday use. This is provided for in a law passed by the coalition government in the Bundestag. Accordingly, e-prescriptions are to become standard and mandatory for practices at the beginning of 2024. At the beginning of 2025, all people with statutory health insurance are to receive electronic files for health data such as findings and laboratory results - unless they refuse to do so themselves. The use of combined health data for research is also to be made possible in future.
Minister Karl Lauterbach from the SPD spoke of a quantum leap with which Germany must now finally catch up with digitalization in the healthcare sector. Until now, important data has been distributed across the servers of practices and hospitals where patients were treated in the past. "This must not continue." The new regulations would have very specific benefits for patients. The treatment options for doctors would be improved.
Data to be used for research
According to the law, health insurance companies are to set up an e-file for all people with statutory health insurance by January 15, 2025 - unless they object. The file is to be a personal data repository and accompany patients throughout their lives with all doctors. The e-file is to be accessible with certain identification rules via health insurance apps. It was already introduced as an optional service in 2021, but has hardly been used to date.
E-prescriptions have been available in pharmacies for some time instead of the usual pink slips of paper. The law now makes it mandatory for doctors to issue prescriptions electronically from January 1, 2024.
A second law will make it possible to link data from various sources - such as cancer registers and health insurance companies - at a central access point. Data is to be encrypted (pseudonymized). Lauterbach said that this would be a breakthrough for research in order to improve care.
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The Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach, from the SPD, emphasized the need for Germany to accelerate digitization in healthcare, as detailed in a law passed by the German federal parliament. This legislation mandates the use of e-prescriptions for doctors starting January 1, 2024, and the introduction of digital patient files for all people with statutory health insurance by January 15, 2025, unless they opt out.
The digitization of health policy in Germany, spearheaded by Minister Lauterbach, includes the linking of data from various sources for research purposes, ensuring encryption and anonymity to protect patient privacy.
Source: www.ntv.de
