End the paperwork? According to the Minister of Health, patients can administer prescriptions for medicines with their smartphones within a few years. But there are still some details to clarify.
Doctors are already allowed to advise patients via video consultation – soon they will also be able to digitally prepare drug prescriptions. This provides, according to information of the „Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“ before a law amendment, the Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) prepares and the latest 2020 is to take effect.
„Only the electronic prescription makes telemedicine a successful project,“ Spahn told the newspaper. That’s why he now creates the framework so that patients could be prescribed medication in the future, even if they only attended a video chat session. „Telemedicine saves doctors and patients time and ways – especially in the countryside and outside of normal office hours.“
Electronic prescriptions are intended to advance telemedicine
Spahn wants to oblige health insurances and Kassenärztliche associations according to the report according to agree rules, so that drug recipes can also be used only in electronic form. She has seven months to do so after the Amendment to the Medicines Act came into force. This is expected to happen in spring 2020. At the same time, the prohibition should be abolished, according to which pharmacies may not surrender prescriptive medicines if the doctor has advised the patient only by telemedicine.
Technical details of storage and access by card and / or mobile app are cash registers, doctors and pharmacists among themselves. The project is one of the topics that Spahn wants to present at the Federal Cabinet’s Digital Exam on Wednesday and Thursday.
