In the future, the Federal Ministry of Health wants to focus more on AI systems in the digital strategy for the health system and orientate itself towards countries such as the USA and especially China. That’s what Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said during his keynote speech at the official opening of the eHealth trade fair DMEA in Berlin.
Lauterbach assumes that systems based on Large Language Models (LLM) such as ChatGPT will soon be able to gain enormous knowledge by, among other things, summarizing medical studies. In order to further advance research in the healthcare sector, the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) is already funding 23 of the 38 German university clinics with a total of 160 million euros. However, because countries such as the USA, China, Israel and Canada are pushing ahead in the field of health research, a “fresh start” is needed that not only improves research but also care.
However, the Minister of Health also sees dangers in using such AI systems: In the future, depressed people could use AI chatbots to find methods to commit suicide even more easily (and apologized in advance to the audience for the bad example). It is therefore necessary to examine whether and how AI should be regulated by law.
In general, he wants to work more closely with the USA to expand the digital strategy for health care that has just been presented. Lauterbach once again regretted the departure of companies such as Biontech and others who no longer want to do research in Germany and are more oriented towards Great Britain, the USA or China. In order to avoid further departures of well-known companies, the planned digital law and the health data use law (GDNG) should therefore ensure that health data can also be used.
Gain confidence in the electronic patient file
A recurring theme in Lauterbach’s speeches: With the planned opt-out regulation, the electronic patient file (EHR) should finally become the standard. When it comes to the introduction, he wants to “rely on a very old-fashioned instrument: trust”. Both patients and doctors have to be given examples to explain the advantages of the EHR. In the future, the data in the electronic patient file will be analyzed with AI. In addition one is also with Epic Systems – one of the largest US companies for health software – in discussion, which want to use together with Microsoft GPT-4 in the health care system.
The digital strategy for health and care must evolve and has a meaning that goes beyond health. Lauterbach had just stated with Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing that a digital strategy was needed for the entire federal government and with it the already announced digital law.
TI messenger, e-prescription and Co.
Furthermore, the TI Messenger (TIM) is to be released this year – a messenger for the medical sector connected to the telematics infrastructure. The data center operator Akquinet is currently working on the implementation of the reference system. TIM is initially intended for communication between doctors, and doctor-patient communication is to be added in 2024. The e-prescription is also to be introduced nationwide in the coming year. At the same time, telemedicine is to be further expanded – for example by removing the 30 percent hurdle for video consultations with doctors.
data protection
Lauterbach wants to choose a “comprehensive” approach to data protection in the future, which should also improve data protection while taking ethical guidelines into account. Only recently did the BMG restrict the influence of the Federal Data Protection Commissioner (BfDI) and the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). He wants to abolish their “classic veto rights in the sense of an agreement”. In the future, the federal authorities responsible for data protection and IT security should only participate in one advisory board.
More than 700 exhibitors from almost 30 countries are represented at the DMEA this year – more than last year. According to the Bundesverband Gesundheits-IT, the start-ups are primarily international and not only come from Europe, but also from countries such as Israel and South Korea.
criticism beforehand
However, experts are critical of Lauterbach’s goal of at least 80 percent of people having an ePA by the end of 2025. Nobody would write a letter specifically to contradict the ePA, complained Dr. Peter Haas at a DMEA satellite event hosted by the German Society for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology. Therefore, there will be many “ghost” ePAs that nobody will fill. When it came to the e-mail, one initially asked oneself who needed it. However, nobody was forced to use them. In his opinion, it is a political problem that more and more projects are being pushed through more quickly. This frustrates a lot of people.
In the past year there was a lot of criticism for the BfDI due to its veto on the redemption method for the e-prescription. In this way, pharmacies could have gained insight into which medicines were prescribed to people they did not know using the insurance number alone. Haas is critical of the fact that the BfDI was insulted for the simplest of demands – although data protection is a high cultural good for us. Once potentially stigmatizing data were out, it would be too late.
(mack)
