Abstracts by keywords: digital health applications
Since 2020, digital health applications (DiGA or “apps on prescription”) have been offering new perspectives for the German healthcare system. In August 2021, 20 DiGAs had already been successfully tested by the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) and listed in the directory of prescribable DiGAs. These can now be prescribed and therefore reimbursed by statutory health insurance companies. Ten apps are used to prevent and treat mental illnesses (especially panic disorders and depression). However, there is no app for suicide prevention (Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices).
17.05.2022
Digital health applications (DiGA), both in the sense of the Digital Care Act of 2019 as patient-centric applications and in the sense of the use of telemedical solutions on the part of providers (e.g. teleconsultations, electronic files), are increasingly recognized as real clinical interventions (Kowatsch et al 2019). They have the potential to supplement and improve care and to make processes more effective (Eysenbach 2001; World Health Organization (WHO) 2015). Nevertheless, innovative digital applications in Germany, as in many other Western healthcare systems, are often not established in standard care (Huang et al. 2017). The dissemination of an innovation within an existing system is described in science with the term diffusion and the associated theory of diffusion of innovations (Rogers 2003). In practice, people tend to talk about the phenomenon of inability to scale up. Above all, this phenomenon underlines that it is a central problem for digital innovation projects to leave the test phase in the project context and to expand the sphere of action to include standard care (Häckl 2010; Gersch and Rüsike 2011).