Electronic patient file in Saxony: everyday life with hurdles

The electronic patient file (ePA) is now part of everyday life in almost all medical practices in Saxony. According to the Kassenärztliche Vereinigung Sachsen (KVS), around 95 percent of the 6,246 practices in the state now use them. At the end of September, the figure was 86 percent. "Currently, however, using the ePA still means a lot of effort for doctors with relatively little gain in knowledge," it said.

Doctors reported improvements in diagnosis or the avoidance of duplicate examinations. At the same time, they complained of additional work due to technical problems and the many laboratory findings that had to be entered into the ePA. The integration of the EPR into the practice management systems also needs to be expanded. Certain prescriptions that cannot be prescribed as e-prescriptions are still missing.

What do patients say?

"In principle, we created an ePA for all our customers at the beginning of the year, provided they had not previously objected," said the largest statutory health insurance provider in Thuringia and Saxony, AOK Plus, when asked. In the federal states, a total of 76,300 of the approximately 3.5 million patients have access to the ePA via the app. The number of users is growing.

Since October, doctors have been obliged to use the electronic patient file and file new diagnoses and findings in the e-file. This is intended to facilitate the exchange of documents between medical practices or with pharmacies and contribute to better treatments.