AWMF calls for a national strategy for the further digitization of guideline knowledge
04.11.2021 17:41
The corona pandemic has revealed the deficits of digitalization in the German healthcare system particularly clearly. At the same time, it has become clear how important reliable, well-founded medical-scientific information is. It is now all the more urgent to use the opportunities offered by digitalization to improve medical care for patients. The Association of Scientific Medical Societies (AWMF) eV therefore calls on future health policy to increasingly implement guideline knowledge in digital care structures. From the AWMF's perspective, a national strategy is needed to integrate evidence-based knowledge into digital health applications, patient information or doctor information systems.
The use of artificial intelligence and big data in healthcare offers new opportunities. Digital health applications can help to recognize symptoms and thus support doctors and other healthcare professionals in diagnosing and providing care. Patient-focused health apps are also based on data. These are being used more and more frequently and can support patients with prevention, self-management or health promotion. With a view to the coalition negotiations currently taking place, the AWMF would like to point out its demands for digitalization in the healthcare system. “It is clear to us as AWMF that digital applications must be evidence-based, i.e. based on guideline knowledge,” says Professor Dr. med. Dr. med. dent. Henning Schliephake, deputy president of the AWMF. Guidelines summarize current medical knowledge and provide the basis for informed decisions by doctors, other health professionals as well as patients, their relatives and citizens. Their contents are developed as recommendations for action in an interdisciplinary, structured and evidence-based consensus process by the specialist societies organized in the AWMF and are made available free of charge via the AWMF's quality-assured guideline register.
The AWMF Institute for Medical Knowledge Management (AWMF-IMWi) is currently working intensively on converting the AWMF guideline register into a digital software structure. “Our goal is to make guideline knowledge usable across the healthcare system across system boundaries via a digital guideline register. We want to integrate this into digital information offerings such as doctor information systems, learning platforms for medical students, information portals for patients and citizens and health apps,” explains Professor Dr. med. Ina Kopp, head of the AWMF-IMWi.
For implementation, the AWMF calls for the creation of a national action plan that includes measures to further digitize the guidelines. As part of the Digital Supply Act, financial and operational support began in the last legislative period for the creation of quality-assured guidelines for the AWMF guideline register. “This funding must be made permanent in the new legislative period. In addition, the implementation of guideline knowledge in the various digital applications must be promoted. This is the only way to ensure scientifically based digital care in the healthcare system – in the interests of patient well-being,” concludes Schliephake.