GerNe Digital!

With a population of about 600,000, Dortmund is one of the largest cities in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). Like many other cities in the Ruhr area, it has an above-average proportion of elderly, multimorbid and chronically ill patients receiving geriatric care. An adequate geriatric treatment requires a cross-sectoral cooperation of all players involved in the health care process. However, because of the separation of the sectors for outpatient, inpatient and home care, these sectors are being organized and managed separately. This leads to interruptions in the care process and to an uncoordinated coexistence of indication-specific therapies with the consequence of too much care, insufficient or incorrect care.

A variety of digital solutions is currently available. Several projects have already been developed in NRW aiming at the implementation of an electronic case file (EFA) as a doctor-managed medical file with the intention to ensure intersectoral networking in relation to specific medical cases and scenarios. The implementation of digital transformation strategies in care is still at an early stage of development. At the moment, it is, in most cases, still limited to the use of mobile devices, which improve workflows, such as client management, care documentation, patient file care or tour planning. A first important step is the project initiative “PiQ – Care in the Quarter”, which supports the networking of all players for the benefit of patients and their relatives in the quarter.

There are currently at least two concepts existing independently from each other – initiatives towards a medical doctor-led file on the one hand and projects around the digital transformation of care involving the domestic situation on the other hand, which, however, do not allow the exchange of information on the basis of current technical standards. By linking the two standards, a seamless information and process chain benefiting the patient and their needs is being envisaged, leading to a significant improvement of the geriatric care process and the quality of life of older patients. This process requires a data protection concept that meets legal requirements and special protection in the medical context for the access and storage of data.