ZVEI Green Paper on the Digitisation of Health Management

Digitisation is causing major changes in health management. These concerns among other things, the development and manufacturing of medical devices, medical research, questions regarding the ethical treatment of personal health data and the role of the patient in the health care process. Their implementation can only succeed if all aspects of digital change are equally considered and involved parties cooperate.

To establish a basis for this, a Green Paper has been developed by ZVEI. This does not claim to completely and conclusively represent all aspects of the digitisation of health management. Rather, it is intended to stimulate an open discussion on coming changes and to create a platform for the successful digitisation of health management.

For this purpose, three theses have been established:

1.Digitisation of health management leads to individualised health care

The path to individualised healthcare consists of three components that are based on digital technologies, are closely interrelated and interdependent: all processes of care must be networked and optimised. These must also be supplemented by the direct involvement of patients. The third component concerns the expansion of medical knowledge: the collected data can be analysed with the aid of big data analyses and combined with other data from the research. On this basis, a rapid evaluation of known and an evaluation of new treatment approaches become possible.

2.Digitisation of health management will result in continuous improvement 

Individualised medical care does not have a defined endpoint. Through scientific analysis of the generated data, medical care can be continuously improved. This improvement process cannot be controlled or assessed by any participant in health management alone. As a result, all parties involved must work together to make informed use of existing processes and medical knowledge. 

3.Digitisation of health management must be shaped with social responsibility 

This includes, first of all, the assurance of data protection and IT security. They are the basis for users to put their trust in new technologies. In addition, the fear that withholding data may result in a disadvantage must be taken into account. In this case, binding requirements are necessary, which ought to reliably protect the decision-making freedom of the individual. Another prerequisite for the success of digitisation is a retrospective assessment of digital applications. This, since a prospective assessment of digital applications is often difficult or even impossible. Finally, it is vital that all considerations on framework conditions are always regarded on a European or international basis - for an implementation of specific German requirements for digital health applications is not conducive to achieving its objective.