The largest IT project for digitizing the healthcare system, the electronic patient record (ePA), is intended to improve the networking situation of all players in the German healthcare system. However, the insured person decides who is to be provided with the data. However, all those insured by statutory health insurance (GKV) are entitled to use the ePA. The patient is therefore free to decide.
A voluntary option to use the digital record, therefore, does not constitute a complaint to the Federal Constitutional Court. The constitutional complaint of a plaintiff against regulations of the file was thus rejected from the outset, explains the Karlsruhe court. The plaintiff’s rights are not affected if there is voluntariness. Thus, the complaint is considered inadmissible.
The health insurers are merely providing the software to fulfill the full function of the ePA from 2022.
The complainant wanted to sue because it considers new regulations on the ePA to be unconstitutional. He considered offers of „care innovations“ by health insurers to be impermissible without the consent of the users. Accordingly, health insurers are allowed to store data for quality assurance purposes, but without pseudonymizing them. However, the plaintiff considered his „informational self-determination“ to be violated. According to the plaintiff, the data collection with meaningful health profiles was a potential for hacker attacks.
The court, on the other hand, dismissed the lawsuit because, as already mentioned, the patient does not have to give consent to the use of the digital record in the first place.
In another case, the plaintiff wanted to obtain a temporary injunction against part of the regulations on the file. Here, too, he did not reach the desired goal because the legal process had not been exhausted. Accordingly, the social courts would have been responsible first.
Source: Zeit