Digital solutions in health care can provide improvement in patient safety, health outcomes and disease prevention. In order to enable the use of these interventions, countries have to provide a legal and technological framework. Compared to other countries, Germany drops behind in the use of digital interventions within its national health care system. The goal of this project is therefore to develop a digital public health index. This index will compare the state of the art of digitalism in health care around European countries.
First, a systematic literature research will give an overview about globally used digital public health technologies. In a second step, indicators for information and communications technology as well as for a legal and ethical framework for digital public health technology use will be selected for European countries. These three areas will be merged in the final index. A quantitative online survey will analyse the degree of implementation and use of digital technologies. The index is intended to allow benchmarking and policy learning in the area of digital Public Health. This will help European countries to improve their health care systems as they will be enabled to learn from the experience of other nations within the areas of implementation, usage and evaluation of digital public health technologies.


Duration:
16 April 2020 - 21 August 2024

Research Team:
Dr. Public Health Laura Maaß (Head of project)

Funding:
Leibniz ScienceCampus Digital Public Health Bremen

Digital solutions in health care can provide improvement in patient safety, health outcomes and disease prevention. In order to enable the use of these interventions, countries have to provide a legal and technological framework. Compared to other countries, Germany drops behind in the use of digital interventions within its national health care system. The goal of this project is therefore to develop a digital public health index. This index will compare the state of the art of digitalism in health care around European countries.

First, a scoping literature research will give an overview about globally used digital public health technologies. In a second step, indicators for information and communications technology as well as for a legal and ethical framework for digital public health technology use will be selected for European countries. These three areas will be merged in the final index. A quantitative online survey will analyse the degree of implementation and use of digital technologies. The index is intended to allow benchmarking an

Electronic health records, telemedicine, electronic prescriptions, health information portals or prescribed Apps are examples of technologies and applications that can be provided by governments in national health care systems. The transformation to a digital health care system offers the chance of sustainable, efficient and safer health care. At the same time, it provides a higher quality of services and better access to medical care for people in need. Interestingly, the adaption of digital technologies and applications in health care varies widely in different countries. While some nations (e.g. Denmark and Sweden) have already implemented various technologies in their health system, other nations such as Germany barely use digital Public Health technologies (DiPHT) at the national level. In the next three years, I will examine the current situation in all European countries with more than 500,000 inhabitants. For this purpose, I will develop a digital public health index. This index will examine both the framework conditions for the provision and the specific use of DiPHT in European health systems.

 

The index will consist of three different sub-indices. All three are self-contained systems, but are all mutually dependent. The first sub-index deals with the technological framework conditions, that must be guaranteed for the use of DiPHT. Quantitative indicators are proposed by the OECD and the World Bank and the EU. They include, among other things, the proportion of households with access to broadband connections, investments in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector or the percentage of areas with 4G / 5G network access in the total area of the country. These indicators are to be collected through the evaluation of country reports. The second sub-index focuses on the legal and ethical framework that should regulate the use of DiPHT. This includes regulations for the exchange of patient data between practitioners, specifications for the use of data by third parties and security measures to protect the privacy of patients. These indicators are answered in a quantitative online survey by experts from the respective nations. Finally, the third sub-index relates to the use of DiPHT in the health systems of the countries included. In addition to specific technologies such as the electronic patient record / referral / prescription or the use of telemedicine, this also includes the existence of a strategy for digitizing the health system as well as state co-financing for the implementation and use of DiPHT. Like the second sub-index, this third set of indicators should also be answered in an online survey by experts from government and academia.

 

The overall index will be able to express the degree of maturity of digital public health in the European health systems. This will enable benchmarking and policy learning between countries. Due to the transparency of the index‘, other countries not included in the study will also be able to determine their own score and determine their own potential. In this way, the health systems of the countries will be able to develop towards more sustainable and efficient systems.

d policy learning in the area of digital Public Health. This will help European countries to improve their health care systems as they will be enabled to learn from the experience of other nations within the areas of implementation, usage and evaluation of digital public health technologies.

Duration:
16 April 2020 - 21 August 2024

Research Team:
Dr. Public Health Laura Maaß (Head of project)

Funding:
Leibniz ScienceCampus Digital Public Health Bremen

Project Type:
Qualification project

Project Partner:
Zeeb, Hajo (Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology - BIPS GmbH)