Hospitals, like other health care organizations, are preparing for electronic patient records planned for 2025. Connection to telematics infrastructure and other components has already been “implemented across the board” as a prerequisite for EPA. This comes from a quick survey by the German Hospital Institute (DKI) on behalf of Gematic and the German Hospital Association, which is responsible for digitalization. 473 hospitals took part in the representative survey from November. Project teams have also been formed and staff informed and trained. Overall, hospitals consider themselves better prepared technologically, organizationally.
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Legal implementation deadlines as a challenge
The biggest challenges remain according to the survey (PDF) inter alia in the optimization of procedures and deadlines for legal implementation. Furthermore, only less than half of hospitals believe software manufacturers will have implemented required EPA modules for hospital information systems by the end of March. “Nonetheless, it takes time for new technology to be fully functional to be able to transmit legally required information, medical reports or diagnostic reports to EPA,” DKI says.
44 percent of hospitals estimate that the rollout period and interface adjustment will take up to three months. Half of the hospitals believed that EPA would take at least three months or a year to be operational “across all relevant organizational units”. “More than half of the hospitals surveyed classified themselves as technically very well (9 percent) or well (45 percent) prepared for EPA. In terms of hardware and software, they were 15 January DKI says the scope of services can be seen when the EPA starts, “in full or in part” in 2025.
Hospitals consider themselves more technologically prepared for rapid EPAs than organizationally.
(Image: DKI)
Only a third feel unprepared. From an organizational perspective, 14 percent of hospitals believe it will take more than a year to integrate EPA into their processes. Only five percent believe the change will take a month or less. Overall, psychiatric hospitals believe they are better prepared than general hospitals – 51 percent of psychiatric hospitals believe they are technically well prepared for EPA, compared to 43 percent of hospitals.
Impasse in communication with doctors’ offices
Recently, a survey conducted by the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Practitioners revealed that there is a logjam in communication with hospitals. Accordingly, sending digital discharge letters from hospitals works only for 9 percent, although 80 percent of the doctors surveyed expect this exchange to be the most common. Overall, resident doctors are somewhat more critical of processes and communication, particularly regarding the nationwide rollout of the electronic patient file. The co-chairman of the Association of General Practitioners has predicted the beginning of chaos. There is also criticism that doctors are obligated to fill the EPA, even though the required components will likely remain in beta for some time.
From mid-January 2025, all legally insured people who have not objected will receive the new version of the electronic patient file. From mid-February, not only practices but also hospitals must fill out the EPA, provided that the hospital information system is technically adapted and filling out is possible. However, software makers are no longer obliged to make systems available nationwide from mid-February – they must first successfully complete the testing phase.
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