Hospital.Help

Berlin – Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach sees a “cosmos of possibilities” in the digitalization of the healthcare system. In particular, the launch of the electronic patient record (ePA) at the beginning of 2025 offers enormous opportunities for better medical research and care.

The late, comprehensive introduction compared to other countries can also be viewed as a “win” because it makes it possible to integrate new technical processes and structures, said the SPD politician at the opening of the Digital Health Conference in Berlin. The digital file will make it possible to quickly access relevant findings and documents within the doctor-patient contact, which “typically only lasts four to six minutes”.

In addition, with the “ePA for all” data could be merged with other data sets from registers or health insurance statements. The entire structure is “AI-ready,” says Lauterbach. The combination of the “data treasure” and artificial intelligence (AI) will lead to new forms of care and “better medicine”. In general, digitalization could be “a building block” in optimizing the “at best mediocre” but comparatively expensive German healthcare system.

Lauterbach called on doctors to support him. “We must not fight this off, but rather we must take new opportunities with us, such as important instruments that make our work better.”

The President of the German Medical Association (BÄK), Klaus Reinhardt, said he shared the Federal Health Minister’s view that AI and digitalization “essentially” offer opportunities. In his opinion, the developments would not lead to the medical profession becoming obsolete.

Rather, digital tools and AI applications could provide support and help “gain time,” says Reinhardt. If the ePA enables good handling in everyday care and access to structured data, the medical profession would gain “an enormous amount of information and decision-making options”.

Reinhardt described the Health Data Use Act (GDNG) as “promising” – this will have an impact. © aha/aerzteblatt.de