Internists want to help shape digitalization and provide suggestions
28.09.2022 14:11
The German Society for Internal Medicine (DGIM) welcomes the process recently initiated by the Federal Ministry of Health to develop a “digitalization strategy for healthcare and care”. In a letter to Health Minister Professor Dr. med. Karl Lauterbach, representatives of the specialist society offered their constructive cooperation in this process and at the same time submitted a list of “requirements for a health data use law”. The aim of the DGIM is to simplify the use of health data in science and care. In this way, diagnostics, therapy and care should be improved in the interests of patients.
The digital transformation of internal medicine is one of the topics to which the DGIM has been intensively devoting itself, not least since the establishment of its own commission in 2020. “Rapid digitalization of the healthcare system is a prerequisite for us to continue to conduct excellent medical research in Germany and to be able to quickly exchange findings and innovations between research and patient care,” explains Professor Dr. med. Ulf Müller-Ladner, chairman of the DGIM. “We therefore welcome the fact that Federal Health Minister Lauterbach has initiated a strategy process for the digital transformation of medicine,” adds DGIM General Secretary Professor Dr. med. Georg Ertl from Würzburg.
The DGIM sees a particularly great need for improvement in the use of health data - a topic that the federal government has also put on the agenda with the Health Data Use Act announced in the coalition agreement. In dialogue with internists who work in research and patient care at university hospitals, the DGIM has therefore drawn up a list of specific requirements in nine subject areas and sent it to the Federal Minister of Health. “With this list we want to point out specific needs and construction sites in digitalization from the perspective of internal medicine and present possible solutions,” says Professor Dr. med. Claus Vogelmeier, special representative for digital medicine on the DGIM board. “Every day we collect huge amounts of patient data in clinics and practices, but the data protection regulations and legal uncertainties currently in force in Germany make its scientific use significantly more difficult or prevent it,” says the Marburg internist.
With the list of requirements, the DGIM offers its support in the development of the GDNG. “As the largest medical-scientific association in Europe, we have the responsibility to help shape future legal regulations in the interests of our patients and our more than 29,000 members – researchers and doctors working with patients,” continued Ertl. “We therefore offered the Federal Minister of Health our broad professional expertise in medical science and patient care,” concludes DGIM Chairman Müller-Ladner.