‘After six months of ePA, we are looking at a success story’

The Electronic Patient Record is a technical application in which all of the insured person's medical treatment data will be stored in future. For the first time, the insured person will then be able to view all their treatment data and make it available to other practitioners. Today, this data is stored in different practices and has never been brought together. I see this as a huge step forward for the medical care of the insured, but also for the practitioners.

This Electronic Patient Record is a real added value, especially for those who are seriously ill or have chronic illnesses. The fact that patient data is available to all practitioners at a central location will certainly improve the quality of treatment. It will be realised that medicines that may have interactions can be checked at the time they are prescribed. This will significantly improve medical treatment. 

Thanks to the new transparency, every practitioner suddenly knows which pre-existing conditions exist, which other treatments are being implemented and which current medication has been issued by other practitioners. The treatment regime can then be adapted to the actual state of the illness and treatment. This is a huge step forward, as there are currently major gaps in care between outpatient and inpatient treatment. 

What I would like is for the insured person to make an informed decision. The important thing is that they have the right to choose - they can decide in favour of or against the patient record. But my wish is to inform the insured person about the benefits so that they don't opt out. 
Some may be concerned about data protection and therefore want to object to the ePA. However, we hope that we can convince them that the patient record medium is secure. We have worked for years to make them as secure as possible. And we, as the AOK Rheinland/Hamburg health insurance fund, will ensure that our policyholders can make an informed decision.

We want to inform the insured persons well, because there is a lot you can do with the patient record: set and view your own data, assign authorisations. This needs to be explained to the insured person so that they can use it. Of course, it is very important that the service providers are also convinced that the patient file represents added value. You have to think of it like this: When you reorganise a company, you always have a change process. This means that you change your processes and you have to take people with you so that they also support these new changes positively.
And the introduction of Electronic Patient Records is the biggest change process in Germany for decades, because all medical practices have to reorganise. It will take time and not everything will run smoothly at first. But that is perfectly normal. When the e-prescription was introduced, not everything worked at the beginning either; the processes were not right. In the meantime, everything is running smoothly and I would say the same about the Electronic Patient Record: In the beginning, not everything will run as we would all like it to, but I am sure that after six months we will be looking at a success story.

This is of course a very, very important question, because older patients in particular are the beneficiaries of Electronic Patient Records. In old age, people are sick more often, they are more seriously ill, they have to go to the doctor and get treatment more often. What do we have to do? We have to design our applications so that they are intuitive, easy to use and not super complex. And if someone has problems, we will certainly have to think about offering training for our policyholders. 

Of course, I would like to be a leader where there are sensible developments in digitalisation. There are also developments that I don't think are so good. But there is a lot of potential where digitalisation could simplify very bureaucratic processes today, also in the interests of the insured person. Especially if you focus on the customer and say: All developments must of course also have added value for the customer or for the doctor's practice. There are certainly still a lot of opportunities here to drive digitalisation forward.
However, digitalisation is also an internal topic for us as AOK Rheinland in communication with the customer, in the processing of services. Here, too, I see many opportunities to simplify the process for policyholders. However, it is also very important to me that we will always be on site. We will also always be available to policyholders via our branches using analogue channels. In other words, we want the best of both worlds.

On the one hand, we are confronted with legal plans, such as the ePA. On the other hand, there are also voluntary applications that we will gradually incorporate. These include vaccination calendars, appointment booking, information if you are travelling abroad and need vaccinations. 
We are talking about platform companies, i.e. networked environments, so that the insured person can, if they wish, have digitally linked contacts and receive services. I believe this will have a very positive impact on our healthcare system. I am still in favour of this: there will be people who may not want this and we have to be there for them just as much; locally, via branches with all other services. We have a mandate to take care of healthcare. And that's why I believe we must continue to uphold both sides.

Many people are now talking about AI and so on. I think we should leave the church in the village. These developments are usually overestimated in the short term and underestimated in the long term. There are also many concerns, which I certainly share, about what can happen with AI. What I would like is for us to tap into the added value and opportunities that the technology offers us for the insured and then incorporate them into our applications. The Electronic Patient Record is just one of our communication channels. We also have our online office and we have now convinced many of our policyholders that interaction with the AOK works very well via this channel. And, of course, we are delighted that we can now use the Electronic Patient Record to promote this channel even more.

Of course, we have to make sure that people - including Change again - accept these new offerings. I believe that they very often experience in their private lives today that many things already work digitally. And I am sure that we can also go down this path and that people want to do so. They want it to be easier.
Just think about online banking; people used to have real worries about that. Today it's actually standard, but of course you have to treat change with respect and caution. But people naturally expect a modern service provider to offer these options. And we want to fulfil this expectation.

I think we health insurance companies have proven for decades that we have always handled highly sensitive data very consciously and that data protection has always played a very important role. And of course we will continue to do so in the future. People can trust that we attach great importance to data protection and will continue to do so. That's what the legislator does. And the data is in safe hands with us.