An article by Lauren Hazlett and Jens Koegler
Cloud technology is still in a relatively early phase within the German Healthcare System, posing questions on how this could potentially be adopted in the future and which impact this would have on the all round quality of patient care.
In order to unpack some of the topics at hand here, it is first key to understand the concept of Intersectoral Care, to then better grasp the opportunities available to the industry in maintaining exceptional standards through the correct implementation of digitalised healthcare. In simple terms, this can be defined as the continuous treatment process or care flow which is oriented to the patient’s care needs from the beginning to the end of a treatment cycle. The question then is: how would the efficiency of such a chain of events improve through digitalisation?
DGIV (German Society for Integrated Care) detail these challenges, opportunities and transformation requirements in their position paper ‘Rapid digitization of the German healthcare system as a catalyst for intersectoral, interprofessional and interdisciplinary care: Reality and Demands’:
“Digitisation makes it possible for the responsible patient to better fulfil his or her right to self-responsibility by navigating through his or her disease path in a more targeted manner. Second, the patient’s network of experts (supported both regionally and nationally) and his or her social environment can be closely integrated, which leads to greater patient satisfaction, a reduction in the burden on the healthcare system, an improvement in efficiency, and ultimately to an increase in the common good.”
Full DGIV paper can be found below:
In order to give this important topic more exposure and potentially drive change, VMware and Atos have partnered in commissioning Flying Health to conduct and publish a comprehensive, in depth study on cloud adoption and usage within the German Healthcare system, looking into how some of these barriers can be broken. The results of this extensive study will be openly accessible and include inputs from key players within the sector in order to generate up to date, relevant and critical insights into the future of digital healthcare, particularly in relation to the positive structural changes Cloud Technology could catalyse within intersectoral care and the system as a whole.
Stand by for more updates on this exciting collaboration and the ground breaking results!