How Germany and France will digitize healthcare with the Recovery Plan
Enrico Martial's point on the plans of Germany and France to digitize healthcare with funds from the Recovery Plan
Germany will also promote digitalisation in healthcare with the 130 billion national program, announced on 6 June 2020 and financed by the Next Generation Eu , the 750 billion European recovery plan. This is an issue on which Germany considers itself to be lagging behind, in particular for hospitals, and for this reason it has launched a "Program for the hospitals of the future" ( Zukunftsprogramm Krankenhäuser ), whose law was approved at the last reading in the Bundestag on 10 October 2020. For the digitalization of healthcare, the amount of the plan is 3 billion plus 25% of expenditure by the Länder for a total amount of 4.3 billion euros.
The interventions concern digital infrastructures, inside buildings and between the different centers (Hub & Spoke), the organization of processes and communication, telemedicine, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), new digital tools and sensors, security of both physical infrastructures and cybersecurity (some hospitals in Germany have been subject to ramsomware attack ), as well as for cross-border data exchange.
The 4.2 billion program provides for the establishment of a financial fund from which the Länder will draw on the basis of the projects presented. The projects and financial commitments are implemented in 2021-2022 and the expenditure until 2025.
In the French Recovery plan ( France Relance for 100 billion) the issue of health is also taken into account, for a total amount of 6 billion euro, in which digitization occupies a total of 2 billion, of which 1.4 billion for the health system and 0.6 billion for social and health interventions in the area, in particular for the digitalisation of the RSA (Ehpad) and other local facilities.
Within the general expenditure for structural investments in healthcare (4bn), the modernization of buildings and nursing homes is also envisaged for digital prerequisites (ducts, spaces, etc.), for instrumentation (e.g. tracks for transfers, sensors fall, monitoring, etc.). From a digital point of view (2bn), the focus is on interoperability, reversibility and security (physical and cyber), as well as the circulation of data. Regarding training, in France an action is underway to increase digital skills in fragile areas and in the less advanced social groups, with “tutors, local courses, etc.
The management of the processes will be entrusted at the territorial level to the regional health agencies (ARS, the “decentralized” body of the state) and to the hospitals, together with the national agency for digital health ( Agence du numérique en santé ).
In Italy, the Guidelines of the " National Recovery and Resilience Plan " (PNRR), were transmitted by the Government to the Chambers on September 15, 2020. Investments in the digitalization of medical assistance for citizens are expected at "Mission 6 – Health ", promoting the electronic health record (FSE) and telemedicine, digital investments for chronic conditions in the territory (eg RSA and health facilities in rural and internal areas) as well as at home. Digitization will also support medical, immunological and pharmaceutical research, medical assistance and prevention.
Unlike the German and French general plans, the Italian PNRR guidelines do not indicate the amounts of expenditure for the individual chapters and missions. Overall, the amount for Italy of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is 191.4 billion, in addition to the other programs and tools, such as ReactEU, RescEU, up to 208.6 billion.
Mission 5 also intervenes on the relationship between health and city / territory. Social, gender and territorial equity, which also provides for investments in digital tools. Mission 1. Digitization, innovation and competitiveness of the production system – which also mentions the health system (referred to in 2016 Pact for Digital Health of 2016 and Three-year Plan 2019-2021) – will also make progress in "system" digitization , that is in connectivity (fiber and 5G), in the availability of data centers and clouds, in the improvement of civic digitization (digital identity, etc.).
According to the Innovative Europe I-Com report of 2019, Italy ranked twentieth in Europe for the degree of digitalisation in healthcare, with Germany in eleventh place and France in fifteenth. The assessment was built on 21 indicators, which included, among others, the territorial coverage of optical fiber and 4G network, the number of bookings made via the web, the level of basic digital skills of citizens and professionals, the ease of login, safety (which our electronic health record takes care of).
Agreed on 21 July by the 27 European leaders, the Recovery Plan (Next Generation EU) was the subject of a discussion between the Council (of European governments) and the European Parliament, which again increased the endowments of various programs, which were subject to cuts in compensation for the large endowment of the extraordinary instrument, which reached 750 billion euros (of which 208.6 for Italy). The agreement came on November 10, 2020, and still requires final approval by national governments in the Council, in which Hungarian objections to respect for the rule of law still need to be overcome.
(Extract from an article taken from Quotidiano Sanità; here the full version )
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/come-germania-e-francia-digitalizzeranno-la-sanita-con-il-recovery-plan/ on Sun, 15 Nov 2020 09:00:20 +0000.