E-prescription: almost half of doctors consider the launch a success

Three months after the mandatory introduction of e-prescriptions for doctors in Germany, around a third of doctors report technical problems and a fifth report problems with filling them at the pharmacy. This is the result of an ad hoc survey commissioned by Stiftung Gesundheit, in which over 1,000 doctors and pharmacists took part. Around 80 percent of pharmacists criticize problems with dispensing by medical practices.

Around 46 percent of doctors and dentists in private practice consider the launch to be a success, with a few minor exceptions. "However, just as many criticize the greater effort involved," Christoph Dippe explains, head of the foundation. "It's clear to me that things couldn't go on as before with paper forms. Digitization was urgently needed. Only in its current form and with numerous failures does it hinder practice operations and patient care more than it helps," criticized Hans-Peter Stotz, owner of a psychotherapy practice, in an interview with heise online.

While more than half of doctors are in favor of expanding e-prescriptions according to the survey, around 40 percent of pharmacists would prefer to return to paper prescriptions. "That's understandable, because the problems naturally add up for them, as they form the end of the chain," says Dippe. "We'll see if this attitude changes once the underlying problems are resolved."

The pharmacy association Abda recently gave an interim assessment of e-prescriptions, which was also attended by the interim managing director of Gematik, Florian Hartge. He explained, for example, that Gematik was on site with the trust service provider Medisign itself to analyze and rectify various errors. Gematik takes care of every ticket and always tries to identify the errors, which is no easy task given the variety of components.

According to Abda Managing Director (Economics) Claudia Korv, the main problems are "on the cash register side" and the e-prescription service is stable. "When people are always bashing Gematik, it's not Gematik at all, it's the partners."

Availability of the TI?

In a brief inquiery (PDF), the CDU/CSU parliamentary group wanted to find out, among other things, how "technical difficulties with Gematik and health insurance company servers" are to be resolved in future. However, the federal government did not provide an answer. "The e-prescription is being continuously developed and the necessary infrastructure will be supported and expanded accordingly in the long term," it also states. The government is therefore planning "ongoing investment in the availability and security of the TI". In the future, nursing care will be connected and "all prescription types will be offered as e-prescriptions".

(mack)