The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has tabled a key-points paper on digitisation in the healthcare sector.

Said Minister Zypries: "Digitisation is transforming almost every single aspect of our lives and of our economy. This applies to the industrial sector and to SMEs, but also to the healthcare sector, which is one of the largest industries in Germany. At the same time, however, the industry is also among the ones that have so far made the least use of digitisation. If we manage to remove obstacles to digitisation and innovation in this field we will be able to harness a great deal of potential. It is important that we make it easier for innovative startups to access the healthcare market, in particular as far as goods and services reimbursed under the regular health insurance scheme are concerned. We would be well advised to provide room for local testbeds, promote holistic digital solutions, and improve the digital infrastructure. This will allow innovations to be used for the benefit of the people."

For the text of the key-points paper (in German), please click here.

Support for holistic digital solutions
German healthcare companies ought to receive support as they develop holistic digital solutions. This is to ensure their competitiveness in a global environment characterised by digital manufacturing and the platform economy.

Improving access to the regular health insurance market
Startups are having a tough time gaining access to the healthcare market. We must therefore find ways of improving their access to the regular health insurance market (reimbursement for services provided). So far, this has been a somewhat longwinded and complex process. Having binding deadlines and designated contacts in place within the relevant authorities could go a long way towards remedying this situation.

Better access to venture capital
In the interest of ensuring adequate compensation for the provision of digital services and products, the relevant companies and associations ought to be involved in the process of fixing the set fees, which is done a priori by the valuation committee.

Creating testbeds
We need innovation, and our healthcare system is no exception to this. We need to create testbeds for innovation, meaning that certain regulations can be adjusted for a certain time or in a designated area to allow for these innovations to be tried out. We must also reduce the obstacles that still exist in many physicians' chambers statutes and that are stopping doctors from offering remote medical services.

Promoting digital investments in hospitals
As we seek to increase the level of investments in digital hospital infrastructure, we want to inject another €500 million into our university hospitals.

Better access to health data
We want to improve existing diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. This is to be achieved by bringing together different sets of data from research, clinical practice, and patient care in a way that is fully in line with the regulations for protecting personal data.

Achieving uniform levels of data protection
We want to create legal certainty for organisations and companies that deal with health-related data. This is why we want to put in place harmonised, transparent and binding data-protection rules for the whole of Germany, which are drawn up in line with the European General Data Protection Regulation.

Enabling remote medical services
We want to review the existing ban on remote medical treatment and prescriptions in order to open up new opportunities in this field.

Unique standards for telematic infrastructure
We want to create a situation whereby, in principle, every company could offer the service of keeping an electronic health file that is fully in line with legal requirements. This means that we need transparent, uniform standards for telematic applications.