“We don’t want to save money by cutting back on digitalisation, but by embracing it”
In her keynote speech at the DMEA, Federal Health Minister Nina Warken emphasised that the benefits of digital solutions must be felt by patients and healthcare providers.
Federal Health Minister Nina Warken at the DMEA. Photo: Messe Berlin
Nina Warken had no shortage of topical issues to address in her keynote speech at the DMEA in Berlin: the Federal Minister for Health sees demographic change, the shortage of skilled workers and the underfunding of statutory health insurance funds (GKV) as numerous reasons for reforming the German healthcare system. She noted that digitalisation plays a key role in making processes more efficient and reducing costs. “We don’t want to save money by resisting digitalisation, but by embracing it,” the Minister emphasised.
The ePA: a success story
Nina Warken described the fact that more than 70 million people with statutory health insurance now have an electronic patient record (ePA) as a success. The ePA makes life easier for healthcare providers by giving them access to medication lists, blood test results and medical reports. The task now is to simplify the registration process for insured people whilst maintaining high security standards. The full-text search function in the ePA, planned for the end of the year, is intended to provide faster access to stored information.
As it is further developed, the ePA is set to become an “everyday app” – THE central point of contact for initial outpatient care, according to Warken. From initial assessment to booking appointments, it will guide users through the healthcare system in future. It can help health insurance funds to offer personalised preventive services such as vaccinations or screening tests.
New prospects for research
However, the data collected can also support research and science in the development of new treatment methods and medicines. The Research Data Centre for Health (FDZ Gesundheit) ensures that the data is analysed in an anonymised form and plays a key role in implementing the European Health Data Space (EHDS) on schedule. Another building block is the current draft of the Act on Data and Digital Innovation in Healthcare (GeDIG). According to Nina Warken, it will make the benefits of digitalisation more tangible for patients, healthcare providers and researchers alike, and provide a reliable framework for AI applications. She described AI as an important growth market in which she believes Germany is well positioned. With regard to the telematics infrastructure, she aims to reduce complexity and media discontinuities and to strengthen gematik to this end.
Following her speech, the Federal Minister of Health took a tour to gain an overview of the exhibitors and their innovations at the DMEA.