Experts pour cold water on eGK benefits
Primary care chiefs and opposition politicians have attacked claims that Germany’s national EHR programme, the eGK, will result in major benefits and cost savings.
Manfred Klunk, primary care ICT director for Germany’s largest region, Bavaria, described the eGK as no more functional than the country’s existing health insurance card. Moreover, Klunk claims that the eGK programme has held up progress towards building clinically useful programmes, such as electronic prescribing.
Rainer Kern of the National Primary Care Association also doubts the final use of the eGK system. He believes that many of the claimed benefits will prove illusory, and that security and confidentiality issues will severely limit the data that in practice will be stored.
Daniel Bahr, parliamentary healthcare spokesman of the main opposition party, the FDP, believes the claimed cost savings are based on over optimistic assumptions. He also believes that the cost of the programme will prove to be twice what the Healthcare Ministry currently predicts.
