Hospital.Help

Cologne The central goals pursued with the draft bill for a Health Digital Agency Act (GDAG) are welcomed by the Association of General Practitioners. However, the Association sees a need for changes in the specific design.

The General Practitioners’ Association (HV) explicitly welcomes the planned increase in the stability of the telematics infrastructure (TI), the expansion of the competencies and intervention rights of Gematik, the tightening of the requirements for providers of practice management systems (PVS) and the improvement of a PVS change process.

However, the association is particularly critical with regard to liability regulations and responsibilities in the event of disruptions to the TI and the continued limited influence of the medical profession within Gematik.

The concerns of the practices must be adequately taken into account in the future, which can only be achieved by more appropriately considering medical service providers when staffing the digital agency.

Another critical point to note is that, according to current plans, there will still be no formal testing option for medical practices to test new technical processes in their PVS with specific real or fictitious cases. However, practices should not be the ones to suffer for insufficiently tested TI components and services.

The association considers the proposed expanded authority of the digital agency to issue binding instructions to providers on how to eliminate or avoid disruptions to the TI to be indispensable. Such an authority is absolutely necessary, as in the past, reports from providers of TI services were often not made or not made promptly, which led to considerable damage to the entire TI, particularly with regard to confidentiality, integrity and availability. Such violations must be adequately sanctioned in the future.

In this context, the Association of General Practitioners points out that sanctions and fines against doctors in connection with digitization should be abolished. In order to properly fulfill their legal obligations, practices are largely dependent on industrial partners who develop, provide and maintain the necessary components, services and systems. They have little or no influence on the difficulties in this regard, so that corresponding sanctions and fines are unfounded. © aha/aerzteblatt.de