Original article
A recent European Commission report led by Open Evidence – a spin-off of the Spanish University of Catalonia (UOC) – examined the implementation of electronic health records and the current level of interoperability in the countries of the European Union, as well as in Norway and the United Kingdom, with rather sobering results.
19.05.2022
Commentary by Dr. Wolfgang A. Rehmann, attorney at Taylor Wessing Partnerschaftsgesellschaft mbB, Munich
19.05.2022
Commentary by Dr. Ali Halboosm, Medical Director of the Telemedicine Center (TMZ) of the Society for Integrated Healthcare
19.05.2022
"I am very pleased that the final evaluation report draws such a positive overall conclusion and recommends maintaining the Innovation Fund as a permanent funding instrument." This was stated by Prof. Josef Hecken, Chairman of the Innovation Committee of the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), on the occasion of the publication of the final report by Prognos AG on the scientific evaluation of the Innovation Fund, which was commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG). According to Hecken, the final report, which covers the years 2019 to 2021, confirms the coalition parties' plans to permanently establish the Innovation Fund, which was previously limited to 2024.
19.05.2022
Unlike digital health systems (DIGA) and video consultations, telemonitoring requires asynchronous communication and a distribution of tasks between patients, medical centers, patient care providers, and service providers. Cloud services are ideally suited for this. Seamless telemonitoring requires constant availability and lightning-fast scaling, which only cloud services, with their enormous computing power, can provide. The cloud also offers greater protection against hacker attacks, data loss, and system failures than operating a computer in a doctor's office. Hybrid cloud solutions for telemonitoring already exist that meet the requirements of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).
19.05.2022
Commentary by Peter Stegmaier, Editor-in-Chief of "Monitor Versorgungsforschung"
19.05.2022
Four million people in need of care receiving home care will be entitled to access to digital care applications (DIPA) in the future. While the unmet needs in care are generally significant, not all areas of care are equally suited to digitalization. Integration into the overall care ecosystem is crucial.
19.05.2022
After last year's MVF specialist congress "Vaccination Status 2021 - Vaccination in Adults in Times of the Pandemic", "Monitor Health Services Research" is continuing the thematic cycle. There was discussion again about what could be done better to generally increase vaccination rates. At the end of April, the speakers and participants in the online specialist congress “Vaccination status 2022 – vaccination in times of pandemic” discussed possible approaches, this time specifically for children and young people, especially with a look at the now almost half a million war refugees from Ukraine and Russia too – most of them small children and their mothers. In addition, Dr. med. Gunther Gosch, practicing pediatrician (pediatrician's practice at Domplatz in Magdeburg) and member of the board of the Saxony-Anhalt Medical Association and the Saxony-Anhalt Vaccination Working Group: “Diphtheria is still endemic in Russia, so it would be entirely possible that this "Vaccine-preventable disease is being reintroduced selectively - it could be similar with tetanus and whooping cough." An incentive to look at the inadequate vaccination rates in Germany from a completely different perspective.
19.05.2022
The structuration theory of the British sociologist Anthony Giddens (1984) is a social theory that places social practices, i.e., recurring actions, at the center of its analysis and explanation. Structures are typically reproduced through such practices, while action, in turn, is conditioned by structures, meaning it is both limited and enabled by them. From the perspective of structuration theory, the use of outpatient care over inpatient care would be such a practice. This practice utilizes outpatient infrastructure and thus reproduces the existence of a strong outpatient sector as a structural feature of the German healthcare system. At the same time, it is also true that only if the outpatient infrastructure exists and actors such as patients and healthcare professionals "know" that outpatient treatment is generally preferred can corresponding action be taken. The aim of structuration theory is to connect the levels of analysis of action and structure more closely than in other approaches and to take their mutual interdependence seriously. Therefore, the theory is used in various disciplines to explore the scope of action of individual and collective actors (such as organizations in the outpatient or inpatient sector) in regulated or institutionalized contexts with regard to both change and stability (see Wilz 2019, Sydow/Wirth 2014 or den Hond et al. 2012).
19.05.2022
The theory of path dependence (David 1985; Arthur 1994; Sydow et al. 2009) is a central approach, not least in organization and management research, to explain the rigidity of organizations, technologies or systems to change. The theory assumes that the subsequent developments after critical, often initially seemingly insignificant events gradually limit actors' scope for decision-making. Self-reinforcing mechanisms then lead to the development of a path that ultimately leads to a “lock-in”. In this condition, it is very difficult to deviate from the path. However, path-breaking strategies can be able to override the self-reinforcing mechanisms or steer them in a new direction.