Gematik Managing Director: Electronic patient file is "AI-ready"
The electronic patient file must become stable, then other features will be added. Patients want fine-grained authorization management.
Bahman Afzali, family doctor and founder of Docport, Arne Orschulik from Techniker Krankenkasse, Michaela Schröder from the Federal Association of Consumer Organizations and Gematik Managing Director Brenya Adjei (from left to right).
(Image: heise medien)
According to Gematik Managing Director Brenya Adjei, around 80 percent of practices can now use the electronic patient file (ePA). Along the way, 600 tickets have been solved and hundreds of interviews have been conducted. The electronic medication list has also saved the first lives. This means that the benefits of the ePA have already been realized, even if only a few insured people actively use the file. She said this in a panel discussion entitled “ePA—Between Data Protection, Digitalization, and Care” at the “Big Bang AI” festival, where representatives from politics and business met.
According to Arne Orschulik, who is responsible for the electronic patient file at Techniker Krankenkasse, among other things, the “ePA is a huge step for everyone.” However, it is still very much in its infancy. 11 million people insured with TK already have an ePA, but it will be a while before they all use it. The large-scale campaigns by the insurance companies were costly. The ePA would be particularly helpful for the next generation, as all information would then be available from birth: “For me, the ePA is not yet one hundred percent what it can be for children who are born now, for example,” said Orschulik.
According to Bahman Afzali, GP and founder of the practice management system Docport, the ePA is already being used in practice. Afzali's patients download documents. “We are already noticing here and there that the whole thing is saving lives,” says Afzali, especially for patients with low health literacy. Thanks to the medication list, doctors can see what other doctors are prescribing. Overall, we need to be prepared for the fact that patients want to take on more responsibility.
Michaela Schröder from the Federation of German Consumer Organizations criticized the information letters from the health insurance companies. More information is therefore “urgently” needed. Many consumers had taken the letters as advertising and thrown them away. There is also criticism of the complicated registration process, which does not always work. There are also questions about the benefits, including from healthy consumers who are interested in the vaccination overview or maternity record, for example. “Most people just want it to work and that they can rely on it. They don't want to read anything, they don't want to click on something a thousand times, and they don't want to spend a lot of time on it.”
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What happens to the data?
This is also the case with data security; they simply want to be able to rely on it. Insured people also want fine-grained authorization management so that they can decide for themselves which doctor can see which document. Authorization management already existed in earlier versions and has been abolished with the new ePA.
“The ePA is incredibly secure. Of course, with a lot of criminal energy, you can always find a way somewhere. I can't deny that, but people have no problem posting their stuff on Instagram, Facebook, and elsewhere,” says Orschulik. He would be “more bothered if 3000 euros were missing from my account than if there was possibly a small data leak somewhere […].”
ePA “AI-ready”
Adjei explained that, on the one hand, there are complaints about data protection, and, at the same time, there is grumbling due to fewer user numbers. She sees the achievements to date as positive. One advantage of the fact that the ePA has not been around for so long is that it is “state of the art” and already AI-ready. This would lead to envy in other countries. Former Health Minister Karl Lauterbach also spoke of the “grace of late birth” in connection with the ePA. According to Adjei, the ePA must first gain “stability in the basic system” before there are further functions.
Afzali criticized the fact that many sectors are still not using the ePA. Many hospitals and care facilities are not yet participating. Hospitals, like statutory health insurance physicians, are obliged to fill in the ePA from October 1. However, sanctions will not be imposed until 2026 at the earliest.
