Doctors in the Lower Rhine are introducing a health account

31.03.2016 17:01

The Doctors Network on the Lower Rhine, an association of doctors from various disciplines, clinics, pharmacies and care facilities, has networked with patients across sectors and digitally for the first time via the “vitabook” health account.

Patients have been able to access since March 30th www.Niederrhein.online Receive laboratory reports, doctor's letters, x-rays, even medical bills and much other health information from your practitioners. Doctor appointments, follow-up prescriptions and referrals to other doctors could also be requested online. You could even order medication in advance at the pharmacy.

Odormed describes the process as follows: Under www.Niederrhein.online Patients and their relatives can set up their own free health account online with just a few clicks. As with online banking, patients receive their own username and password. With this account, patients can have their doctors transfer health data like they would to a checking account. There is a separate health IBAN for this, which works like a checking account number. This account number consists of the patient's insurance number and their insurance number. Both information is already on the patient's respective health card.

Additionally, patients could place a sticker with a random number on their health card. The insurance number and random number then provided insight into the patient's emergency data record, even in an emergency. The stickers are to be distributed free of charge in participating doctor's practices in the Lower Rhine.

Markus Bönig, managing director and founder of “vitabook” explains the fundamentally different approach of the doctors in the Lower Rhine as follows: “Why should patients wait for years for the state when they can have their own health records immediately? As a patient, I want to determine my own data. It is enough if I connect with my doctor and his assistants via my health account. For this to happen, all actors do not have to be complicatedly connected to one another. All I need is my own account that belongs to me. Since with “vitabook” the patient alone decides who has access to their data and is allowed to read and handle it, there are no data protection obstacles to immediate implementation.”