Digital solutions with genuine benefits for outpatient care

Whether for ePrescriptions, booking appointments or supporting workflows, digital solutions for medical purposes can only succeed if they are efficient and benefit users. medatixx, a leading provider of software and IT services for outpatient care, shows how it works. At DMEA 2024, the company’s managing director Jens Naumann puts the spotlight on doctor/patient communications – and much more.

It is the year 2024 and the internet has been around for three decades. As a German healthcare patient, can I communicate digitally with my doctor’s practice?

If we are honest, not with every medical practice, but that is rapidly changing. At this year’s DMEA, we at medatixx are making digital doctor/patient communications a big topic. We can see this is a pressing issue for customers. Solutions for booking appointments online, such as our x.webtermin software, are in high demand. But it is not just about appointments. A safe communication channel is what is needed, one that a medical practice can use if required. A solution called TI Messenger or TIM 2.0 is in planning as part of the telematics infrastructure (TI), but in our opinion it is taking too long. That is why we already presented our own x.patient communication tool several years ago. We have built on that and are presenting a successor at DMEA 2024.

What shape will this solution take exactly?

We are now partnering with gesund.de in the field of digital doctor/patient communications. This is basically a pharmacy app for ordering prescriptions and lets patients and pharmacies exchange general information. We are incorporating this app, which is already widely established on the market, in our software for medical practices as a tool for communicating with patients. It acts as a secure communication channel for booking appointments, sending reminders, requesting prescriptions or exchanging information. In a sense, we are anticipating the TIM 2.0 functions of the future. And should TIM 2.0 be launched as a TI application, we will redesign our solution accordingly to make it TIM-compliant.

One innovation in outpatient care is ePrescriptions. Is medatixx in business here?

There is probably nothing in the history of German health IT as widely piloted and trained for as ePrescriptions. Implementing this in medical practice software is no problem whatsoever. After some procedural adjustments and general prep time, our customers can easily and quickly generate ePrescriptions. There were some glitches here and there at the beginning of the year, but that was mostly due to central services failures or initial communication problems with patients. In all other respects we are satisfied. Nevertheless, there is always a demand for progress, which we will gladly fulfil. The use of KIM services to transmit ePrescriptions to pharmacies is also an important issue in the context of providing nursing homes and prescriptions for cytotoxic agents. Prescriptions for narcotics, special drugs, treatments and technical aides are soon to be digitalised too. In 2024, implementing the electronic patient record (ePR) will be the really big event for us.

What exactly awaits you?

As a supplier of IT for medical practices our job is to ensure the ePR is incorporated in all our software solutions in a way that is functional and easy to use. The first step is the digitally supported medication process. Our aim is to make it as intuitive and contact-free as possible for our customers. But that is something we cannot demonstrate until DMEA 2025. Together with the industry, gematik and KBV are currently working on specifications. We are again supervising the introduction of the ePR with extensive tuition and information courses on our two online platforms (dip and medatixx-akademie). We are also exhibiting a wide range of IT solutions which are always in high demand, including for video consultations, making online appointments, digital archiving and various tools supporting workflows. The latter applies particularly to medical care centres, since many institutions in Germany make use of our dedicated x.vianova software.

Everyone is talking about AI. Does that include medatixx?

Yes, we want to talk about it at DMEA, specifically about AI-based decision-making systems. We are currently piloting a number of applications here, where anonymised patient records are scanned by validated algorithms, which then suggest possible diagnoses or treatment recommendations. We are a bit cautious about a widescale rollout as there are still some unresolved issues, less of a technical nature, and more to do with regulatory aspects. Regardless of this, we are very interested in finding out what our customers think about these pilot efforts. We believe there could be some quite interesting scenarios when it goes live, particularly in medical care centres.

Finally, a word on the federal government’s digital policies?

There are many aspects to this. We welcome the Act to Accelerate the Digitalisation of the Healthcare System,in particular the decision to reboot the ePR, which can be expected to finally bring home the benefits of digitalisation to our customers. In principle we also anticipate that the Competence Centre for Interoperability in the Healthcare System (KIG) will act as a catalyst for interoperability. The fact that last-minute amendments have found their way into the law giving gematik, an organisation which is soon 100% state-run, the right to develop software that would also compete with free market tenders, is something we consider unfortunate. This could complicate collaboration between the industry and gematik. In principle however, the German healthcare system is in urgent need of an authority that lays down and enforces binding norms. We intend to actively assist in this undertaking, for example, in the context of important laboratory standard. As regards the law governing gematik, which is still work in progress, we are hoping for a clear allocation of responsibilities and transparent governance structures concerning digitalisation, which - within the existing regulatory framework - will continue to facilitate a free market, where companies compete with each other.