A family feature is now available for the e-prescription app. This was announced by Gematik GmbH, which is responsible for the digitization of the healthcare system. This is intended to “manage the entire family in one app”. Accordingly, in addition to one’s own e-prescriptions, the prescriptions of relatives can also be accessed and managed within the app.
The prerequisite for this is an NFC-enabled electronic health card (eGK) and the associated PIN from the respective health insurance company, which must be applied for for the person to be managed. The person must then be registered in the app. Parents or relatives can then store a profile for them on their smartphone or computer. According to Gematik, the number of profiles that relatives can create is unlimited. For children, both parents can store a profile in the app.
In addition, users can use the e-prescription app to ask the pharmacy of their choice “whether a drug can be picked up or whether it still has to be ordered. This also eliminates unnecessary trips for the person who manages the profile on the smartphone.” , says Marcel Basquitt, Product Owner of Gematik’s e-prescription app.
Pharmacies should be ready by September
On September 1, 2022, all pharmacies in Germany should be ready for e-prescriptions. According to Gematik’s TI dashboard – which is intended to show the current status of the telematics infrastructure – 8,443 out of 18,000 pharmacies are currently ready for the e-prescription (as of August 2, 2022) and have completed training. You are thus able to accept, deliver and bill e-prescriptions.
The telematics infrastructure is intended for the exchange of patient data within a secure network. The German Association of Pharmacists (DAV) and the Federal Association of German Pharmacy Software Houses (ADAS) recently said that the necessary modules “of all common merchandise management systems […] developed and installed in the pharmacies over the past few months.
Pharmacies strongly represented in model regions
An above-average number of pharmacies are ready in the two regions in which doctors, dentists and clinics are to issue e-prescriptions from September 1, 2022: “In Westphalia-Lippe there are more than half (55 percent), in Schleswig-Holstein even two third (66 percent) of pharmacies ready for e-prescriptions,” says Dr. Reiner Kern, spokesman for the Federal Union of German Associations of Pharmacists. According to DAV chairman Thomas Dittrich, “hardware and software are in the pharmacies […] ready for use” – the connection to the telematics infrastructure was already completed in 2021.
