ePA: Do not “misuse” those with statutory health insurance to collect health data as part of digitalization
06.12.2021 09:59
In the coalition agreement, the new government coalition plans to use an opt-out procedure to abolish central requirements regarding data protection for electronic patient files (ePA). Opt-out means that the ePA applies to all legally insured people - unless you actively object. To date, according to the Patient Data Protection Act, the ePA should only be made available to those with statutory health insurance upon request. The opt-out procedure paves the way to comprehensive collection of health data, according to the assessment of the Professional Association of German Psychologists (BDP).
Most health insurance practices providing services in the area of treating mental illnesses have only been able to be connected to the telematics infrastructure (TI) due to the relatively high data protection measures required by law. Now these assurances are to be undermined after most practices are connected to the TI. No data storage is 100 % safe. The best data protection means data economy. The central storage of ePA data creates data protection risks. It cannot be ruled out that insured persons will suffer disadvantages as a result of certain entries. This particularly applies to stigmatization due to diagnoses of mental disorders.
If the legislature restricts data protection requirements, the BDP advocates generally keeping psychotherapy data, which sometimes extends far beyond the health status into private, intimate or even professional life, out of the ePA or at least storing this data separately when opting in. procedure to be left in place.
The coalition agreement also plans a health data usage law for better scientific use, which is welcome and should take place before further opt-out steps.
According to the BDP, a health data usage law must in particular require that sensitive health data not only be pseudonymized but also anonymized and that, for example, early data aggregation prevents traceability to the identity of individual persons.
In the BDP delegates' conference on November 28, 2021, a resolution was passed with an overwhelming majority due to serious concerns about the planned legal changes and existing regulations: https://vpp.org/cms/images/2021/Dowloads/Resolution_Datenschutz_DK2_2021.pdf