In our #SmartHealthSystems study, we analyzed 17 countries on the state of digitalization in healthcare. In our specifically developed Digital Health Index, Canada earned an excellent second place. In our Skype interview, Dr. Jennifer Zelmer, President and CEO of the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement, explains that new e-health services will be successful if they address the needs of citizens and healthcare professionals and are perceived as valuable clinical support. In Canada, the acceptance of new technologies has been systematically promoted through targeted user involvement and various campaigns. For Zelmer, the resulting engagement of citizens and physicians constitutes a key factor for the successful digitization process in Canada.
Electronic patient files prevent dangerous drug interactions; telemedicine provides patients access to medical expertise no matter where they are; health apps strengthen the chronically ill. In the digital transformation of the healthcare sector, however, EU Member States are advancing at different speeds. In our #SmartHealthSystems study, which is now published in English, we compared the progress of Digital Health in 14 EU Member States and three OECD countries. Using our specifically developed Digital Health Index, we found three key factors common to the leading countries. In addition, the study provides insights into the ‘lessons learned’ of various countries regarding the implementation of Digital Health into regular healthcare delivery.
Offering more quality transparency in digital health applications for citizens, so that good apps can be used in healthcare: With this goal in mind, we are developing an online app search with our Weisse Liste colleagues. In this context, we are developing the AppQ core-set of quality criteria, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Health. The core-set aims to help standardize the quality requirements for health apps and to provide structured quality data for these apps (as previously reported). In this second blog post on AppQ, we report on the progress of our project and present the draft of the core-set of quality criteria.
