Both treatment providers and patients will only accept an electronic health record (EHR) if it is clearly organized, simple, and easy to use, claims Professor Peter Haas, a medical information scientist at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Fachhochschule Dortmund), in an expert report on the EHR commissioned by us. In this guest blog post, Professor Haas pointedly describes why acceptance is a crucial success factor for the introduction of an IT solution – in this specific case, the electronic health record, and how it can be achieved.
Data already circulating in the healthcare system should be used by research and patient information professionals in a more comprehensive and resolute manner; this is the stance taken by the Hamburg-based healthcare expert Prof. Jonas Schreyögg in his guest article on our blog. In a report commissioned by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, the extent to which this is legally permissible – and perhaps even necessary – is taken up by two Regensburg-based law scholars, Thorsten Kingreen and Jürgen Kühling. In their summary, the two authors propose the following course of action: We should begin by ensuring “data transparency” (as stipulated by § 303a-e in Germany’s Social Security Code or SGB V), then facilitate the use of existing comprehensive inpatient data (by ordinance or directive) at the German Institute of Medical Documentation and Information (DIMDI), and then extend (by law) the data volume to include outpatient structural and billing data. This article summarizes the main findings of their expert assessment.