Bundestag passes law
E-prescriptions and digital patient files are coming to everyone
December 14, 2023, 12:02 p.m
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From 2024 onwards, pink slips will be a thing of the past for many patients when they go to the pharmacy. After initial tests, e-prescriptions should become the standard. Following a legislative resolution by the Bundestag, digital patient files will be introduced from 2025.
Electronic prescriptions and digital patient files are set to come into widespread everyday use after years of delays. This is provided for by a law passed by the traffic light coalition in the Bundestag. Accordingly, e-prescriptions should become standard and mandatory for practices at the beginning of 2024. At the beginning of 2025, all legally insured people should receive electronic files for health data such as findings and laboratory values - unless they reject it. The use of combined health data for research should also be made possible in the future.
Minister Karl Lauterbach from the SPD spoke of a quantum leap with which Germany must finally catch up with digitalization in the healthcare system. So far, important data has been distributed across the servers of practices and hospitals where patients have been treated in the past. “It can’t continue to be like this.” The new regulations would have a very concrete benefit for patients. The treatment options would be better for doctors.
Data should be used for research
According to the law, health insurance companies should set up an e-file for everyone with statutory health insurance by January 15, 2025 – unless you object. The file should be a personal data storage and accompany patients throughout their lives with all doctors. The e-file with certain identification rules should be accessible via cash register apps. It was introduced as an optional offer in 2021, but has hardly been used so far.
E-prescriptions have been available to be redeemed in pharmacies for some time now instead of the usual pink slips. The law now makes it mandatory for doctors to issue prescriptions electronically from January 1, 2024.
A second law is intended to make it possible to link data from various sources – for example from cancer registries and health insurance funds – at a central access point. Data should be encrypted (pseudonymized). Lauterbach said this is a breakthrough for research to improve care.