The electronic patient record (ePA) is the central element of networked health care and the telematics infrastructure. The EPR collects all patient data collected in various hospitals and practices in a digital file. This gives patients a view of all relevant information such as findings, diagnoses or treatment reports and can make this available to their doctors, therapists and pharmacists.
Only the patients have data sovereignty: They decide whether and how they use their electronic records and to whom they make them available. Patients usually manage their EPR via an app on their smartphone or tablet, which their health insurance company has had to make available to them on request since January 1, 2021.
Since July 1, 2021, all contract physicians and psychotherapists must be able to read and fill in the ePA. The prerequisites for this are:
- a TI (telematics infrastructure) connection
- Update to ePA connector: Practices need an update for their connector ̶ so that your existing device becomes an ePA connector. So far, “gematik” has only approved such an update for one connector. For information on this, practices should contact their PVS manufacturer or IT service provider.
- PVS module ePA: It should enable convenient reading and transfer of data from the PVS to the ePA and vice versa. Implementation has progressed to different degrees. Practices should also contact their PVS manufacturer about this.
- eHBA 2.0 (electronic health professional ID) ordered