Germany embraces digital prescriptions, yet European integration lingers

While the German public health sector has taken a step towards digitalisation, making electronic prescriptions obligatory, the road to the European Health Data Space is still long.

In Germany, a “pink slip” granted the holder the correct medical remedy at the closest pharmacy, but they are now a thing of the past. As of 2024, patients in Germany receive their prescriptions in digital form only.

Germany is now progressing in an area where 14 other EU countries have already made headway. Northern European countries such as Sweden and Denmark have a decades-long history of similar prescription systems with successful implementation.

The German move to digitise prescriptions and to introduce an electronic patient summary in 2025 tries to close some gaps with its European neighbours. All Member States will be connected to the MyHealth@EU data infrastructure by 2025.

“MyHealth@EU” is a critical EU initiative for the development of standards and interoperability specifications for health data sharing across member states.

However, German ePrescriptions will not be able to be used throughout Europe for some time.

“The first practical [cross-border] use case for Germany will be the patient summary,” a spokesperson of the Federal Health Ministry told Euractiv, adding that introduction is scheduled for 2025.

Currently, all EU countries except for Denmark and Romania are working to implement an electronic prescription and a patient summary to be accessible throughout Europe via the so-called MyHealth@EU data infrastructure.

The current target of Germany represents the minimum goal set out by the initiative to have launched one of these or both services by 2025.

Following the patient summary, the “cross-border ePrescriptions will be the next practical use case for Germany in MyHealth@EU,” the spokesperson confirmed.

In the future, medical images, lab results and hospital discharge reports, as well as full health records, are planned to be introduced to the MyHealth@EU platform, transforming it into the EU Health Data Space. This aggregated health data can also be shared for research and innovation of public interest.

Details on this shared data space are currently being negotiated between the European Parliament and the EU countries.

EU Parliament agrees position on digitalising health data

The European Parliament agreed on their position on digitalising EU health data on Wednesday (13 December), paving the way for the start of interinstitutional negotiations on Thursday.

Germany’s health digitalisation begins

Albeit two years later than initially planned, the digital prescription is embedded in the German Ministry of Health’s plan “to use digital solutions to improve everyday healthcare and research opportunities in Germany.”

In December, the German Bundestag approved two legislative acts to improve care and research in the healthcare sector via digitalisation, and digital prescriptions are the first measure coming out of it.

“With the digital laws, we are finally ushering in the digital age for the German healthcare system. We are starting the race to catch up with the electronic prescription, which will become standard from 1 January,” the German Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach stated.

The new prescription form will be generated and signed exclusively digitally. It can be redeemed with an electronic health insurance card, a smartphone application or a printout.

It is supposed to eliminate the need for doctor appointments to renew a prescription and should have the advantage of ruling out any miscommunication possibly caused by a handwritten version. In addition, it is advertised to enable medication reminders and should make it easier for health professionals to check whether the medicines are compatible with each other.

Initially, the nationwide introduction of the electronic prescription was planned for mid-2021. A slow test phase, data protection concerns and technical difficulties delayed the mandatory implementation until now.

The official start at the beginning of the week was hampered for patients of three insurance providers due to the inaccessibility of the prescription via their smartphone app. Additionally, doctors and pharmacies complained about the lack of public awareness about the change, causing the need for lengthy explanations.

However, Hans-Peter Hubmann, Chairman of the German Pharmacists’ Association (DAV), welcomed the measures for the further introduction of the ePrescription: “It is only logical that the ePrescription will now also be mandatory for doctors’ practices from 2024.” Nonetheless, “the new prescription system is still bumpy in a number of areas,” he added.

[By Kjeld Neubert, Edited by Vasiliki Angouridi | Euractiv.com]

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