Electronic Prescription (E-Rezept) Problems Arise Due to Infrastructure Failure
According to a Spiegel report, a failure in an infrastructure service within the E-Rezept system, offered by CompuGroup Medical Deutschland AG, is causing issues for those who want to activate an electronic prescription. The German Federal Ministry of Health and the Association of the German Chambers of Pharmacists (ABDA) have confirmed the problems to the magazine. The company itself acknowledges the issue, but refuses to comment further, instead referring to a statement to be issued to the Gematik.
The failure affects many pharmacies in Germany, impacting the activation of E-Rezepte through the electronic health card (eGK) and the Cardlink system. While E-Rezepte can still be accepted and delivered if the doctor’s office prints the corresponding token, the token can still be read in pharmacies.
Patients should request a printed E-Rezept from their doctor’s office for the time being, until the problem is resolved, the ABDA advises. The Gematik stated that this is not a widespread outage, but rather an issue affecting practices and pharmacies using CompuGroup Medical’s software. Redundancy mechanisms are currently enabling the activation of E-Rezepte until the problem is fully resolved. A CompuGroup Medical spokesperson could not provide information on the duration of the problem or a potential solution at the time of the inquiry, and the company is currently working on a solution.