Significant Increase in Electronic Patient Record Access in Model Regions

Recent reports indicate that health insurance providers have established over 70 million electronic patient records (EPA) for their insured individuals. However, practical utilization remains limited, with only around 50 pharmacies and 230 medical practices in the model regions of Hamburg, Franconia, and North Rhine-Westphalia actively utilizing these records.

Despite the theoretical access available to patients, engagement with the electronic patient records has been minimal. All records have been populated with various data, including e-prescription information, enabling patients to access their EPAs even outside the designated model regions.

The Gematik organization has enhanced its telematics infrastructure (TI) dashboard, providing a clearer overview of EPA usage metrics. During the ninth calendar week (February 23-28), medical institutions opened a total of 144,263 electronic patient records. Notably, this figure reflects repeated accesses, contributing to the overall statistics. This marks a significant increase compared to only 426 accesses recorded in the third calendar week when the EPA pilot phase commenced.

A parallel trend is observed in the access to electronic medication lists, which saw a total of 45,471 instances opened by healthcare providers in the same week. This contrasts sharply with the mere 58 accesses recorded during the initial week of the pilot phase, illustrating a marked improvement in engagement.

The TI dashboard further details the daily transfer of e-prescription data into the EPAs. The highest recorded transfer occurred on February 10, when 2,898,352 e-prescriptions were stored in the EPAs. However, no subsequent increase in transfers has been noted since then. It is essential to highlight that all e-prescription data is currently being automatically integrated into the electronic patient records for all 70 million insured individuals, which includes those outside the model regions.