Survey: Disruption and outages slow down digital healthcare system

With the digitalization of the healthcare sector, the problems that technology causes for those involved also appear to be increasing. According to a survey by MDM specialist Soti, 59% of IT decision-makers in the healthcare sector stated that they experience frequent technical difficulties and downtime with networked IoT and telemedicine devices. In 2022, this figure was 53 percent. This leads to delays and restrictions in patient care and ties up capacities: On average, 3.9 hours per week per employee were now lost due to such downtime – compared to 3.4 hours in 2022.

According to Soti's figures, Germany is just above the average for complaints about downtime at 61%. However, IT decision-makers in Canada (73 percent), Australia (66 percent) and the UK (64 percent) are apparently struggling even more. According to the data, 1750 IT decision-makers in healthcare organizations with 50 or more employees, such as hospitals, took part in the survey, 150 of whom were from Germany. The survey was conducted in eleven countries.

The ePA tour de force

The introduction of electronic patient records is also proving to be a feat of strength: More than three quarters (79 percent) of respondents stated that the introduction of ePAs was a significant challenge for their company. In Germany, 73 percent stated this. For around a third in Germany, the challenge was also due to outdated in-house IT. The international average was 36 percent. 30 percent of respondents also complained that systems were changed too often for the organization to keep up with the changes.

The extent to which the failures were more home-made or more externally caused by the general healthcare IT infrastructure of the respective country was not the subject of the survey. In Germany, the ePA and e-prescription systems were only disrupted again at the beginning of June.

(axk)