Markus Beier, the national chairman of the German General Practitioners Association, offered a stark assessment of the electronic patient record (ePA) that was rolled out nationwide just over a year ago. According to Beier, only a handful of patients have actually viewed their ePA. He attributes the low uptake mainly to the overly complicated registration process, which even patients who are comfortable with digital technology eventually find frustrating and abandon. As a result, many people are unaware that they even have an ePA. Data from the Federal Ministry of Health indicate that only about four million of the 74 million statutory health‑insured individuals are currently using the system.
Beier argues that the ePA system urgently needs further development. He points out that while the concept works in other countries, Germany’s version fails because of imperfect implementation. In its present state, the ePA is largely a disorganised collection of PDFs that offers limited real‑world practicality for clinicians. Doctors must sift through countless documents without the aid of a full‑text search function. Compounding the problem are frequent disruptions and outages in the telematics infrastructure-the network that underpins the ePA-which drain significant amounts of time and cause considerable frustration in medical practices.