ePA Launch – IBM sets the course for the electronic patient record

The introduction of the ePA marks the beginning of the comprehensive digitization of the German healthcare system, aiming to improve inefficient and costly processes for the benefit of patients, doctors, clinics, and all other stakeholders in the sector. However, politics and health insurers have recognized that changes are necessary to keep rising healthcare costs under control. One of Germany’s most important digitization projects is therefore the nationwide rollout of the electronic patient record (ePA) for all 73 million publicly insured individuals.

Since the initial introduction and launch of ePA 1.0 in 2021, several million publicly insured individuals have voluntarily opened an ePA. They have since benefited from centralized storage of their health data, which reduces duplicate examinations, simplifies medication management, and enables more personalized treatment.

The rollout of ePA 3.0, the third generation of the electronic patient record (also known as “ePA for all”), marks a crucial milestone on the path to a modern, digitally connected healthcare system in Germany.

The ePA for all establishes a unified infrastructure that, for the first time, allows all stakeholders in the healthcare system to seamlessly and securely exchange and manage digital health data. Improved data transparency and more efficient data management will enable significantly better patient care in the future.

New integrated services also contribute to this development: The e-prescription and digital documents such as the medication list, medication plan, vaccination record, or maternity passport also utilize ePA data. This ensures that all stakeholders and insured individuals always have access to up-to-date treatment information online. As a result, doctors can provide more comprehensive healthcare, while avoiding duplicate treatments or incorrect medication prescriptions.

The reliable connection of all stakeholders in the healthcare system requires a secure and high-performance IT network. Therefore, the ePA is integrated into gematik’s telematics infrastructure (TI), the nationwide secure communication framework for healthcare applications.

IBM Health Plattform: Open Platform, Secure Data Centers

Since 2017, the IBM Open Health Platform has served as the technical foundation for various key healthcare applications in Germany. These include the electronic patient record (ePA), the e-prescription service, the secure email service “Communication in medicine” (KIM) for exchanging medical documents, and the health ID. Additionally, the IBM Open Health Platform provides the basis for a wide range of advanced healthcare services, which can be further enhanced in the future with new AI-powered functionalities.

The IBM Open Health Platform is built on Red Hat OpenShift, a proven and comprehensive development and deployment platform for hybrid cloud applications. It provides the necessary tools and services to manage and optimize complex hybrid cloud applications like the ePA throughout their entire lifecycle—from development and deployment to the operation of ongoing workloads.

To meet the high security and privacy requirements in healthcare, the data for the ePA and other services are highly available and distributed across numerous geographically separated data center locations within the IBM Cloud in Germany. The IBM Cloud Satellite technology connects these various storage locations with three highly secure data centers, where the data is then processed. IBM has specifically built these data centers in Frankfurt am Main, Nuremberg, and Munich to support the delivery of the ePA and other digital health services.

These data centers are connected to the systems of individual healthcare stakeholders via the telematics infrastructure of gematik. This includes, for example, medical practices, hospitals, pharmacies, and health insurers. Insured individuals can access their ePA through the app or website of their health insurance company, where they can view test results, prescriptions, doctor’s letters, and more.

Once the pilot phase is completed, around 50 million of the total approximately 73 million ePAs will be created on these IBM systems before the nationwide rollout begins. This includes the ePAs of all insured individuals from the largest statutory health and substitute health insurance providers: Techniker Krankenkasse, Barmer Ersatzkasse, the Allgemeine Ortskrankenkassen (AOK), as well as VIACTIV, HEK – Hanseatische Krankenkasse, and Knappschaft Bahn See (KBS).

With More Digital Services into the Future

For the insured individuals, the ePA is now at the center of digital healthcare – it is the core component of the new digital health ecosystem. And it is not alone: The ePA integrates extended health services that enable comprehensive health management.

The ePA for all does not simply provide insured individuals with new digital health services. It is designed to enable a fundamental transformation of healthcare through the meaningful and secure use of digital technologies. In the long term, this will lead to better healthcare for all insured individuals and thus a healthier society. 15 January 2025, marked the starting point for this future. We at IBM are proud of our contribution to this crucial project for the German healthcare system and will continue to develop the ePA with gematik and the health insurance providers to ensure that its full potential can be increasingly realized.

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