The statutory health insurers are confident that insured persons will take up the offer of electronic management of their health data in the form of electronic patient files (ePA). The electronic patient file has been available since January 1 on a voluntary basis, for example to store doctor’s findings and X-ray images and then share them with doctors if the insured person wishes to do so. In the process, 73 million potential users of the digital file as an app, preferably via smartphone, can decide for themselves whether to share data for better healthcare. The active activation is in the hands of the insured persons of the GKV. However, the ePA is by no means a replacement for the documentation of medical data in doctors‘ offices. Physicians must continue to communicate with other specialists and medical facilities in the healthcare system. The user ultimately decides which personal health data should be stored and who has access to it. In the first year, the digital record will exist in an unrefined form, but it will gradually gain more functions. The test phase will initially begin with selected physicians in Berlin and with SHI practices in the Westphalia-Lippe region. The head of the Central Federal Association of the Statutory Health Insurances, Doris Pfeiffer, and the head of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (AHIP), Andreas Gassen, believe that this is a further step in the digitization of the healthcare system. However, expectations should not be too high, especially in the first year. Elderly people could also be overwhelmed with the use of the tool for better medical care.
Source: aerzteblatt.de