During Karl Lauterbach’s visit to Israel, it becomes clear that the Federal Minister of Health obviously wants to learn how he can make the German healthcare system more digital. Lauterbach has a lot of support for this in the traffic light coalition.
When Karl Lauterbach talks about Israel, he gets enthusiastic. The country provided the crucial data for the corona vaccination, and no country had “even remotely” had as great an impact on the pandemic as Israel. The health minister, who was recently criticized in Germany for running his office too chaotically, seems in his element during his visit to Israel. In doing so, he will also become a bit of a digital or research minister: “Digitalisation will be a focus of my work over the next three years,” he announces.
Specifically, Lauterbach wants to take know-how from Israel with them. The electronic patient file, for example, is finally to become efficient in Germany: “Israel is more successful than any other country in the world in conducting studies with the data that is obtained in routine medicine. This improves care,” explains the minister in an interview with ntv. This gives you important information on the effectiveness of medicines in practice: “It’s fascinating, and we want to introduce that in Germany too, with the electronic patient file.” The patient file should be “very transparent”.
Asked whether he thinks that Germans would support this approach when it comes to digital, sometimes sensitive health data, Lauterbach says: “Yes, I think so. If they feel the immediate benefit, then people are willing to use this data for research to make it available. That’s the way we want to go here.”
Lauterbach signed a declaration of intent with his Israeli counterpart Nitzan Horowitz on Sunday. The two countries want to work even more closely together in the healthcare sector in the future. This also includes fighting the pandemic. In addition to laying a wreath at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, Lauterbach also visited the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, a leading hospital in Israel.
In the meantime, it has also arrived abroad that Germany is a pretty dusty country when it comes to digitization and bureaucracy. During the tour of the hospital, part of the German delegation, Lauterbach is in a different place at the moment, meets a German nurse in the corridor, who reacts a little shyly. The chief physician, who is standing next to him, says half jokingly in the direction of the group: “She must be afraid of the German bureaucracy.”
Bureaucracy: This could be the biggest hurdle for Lauterbach in his projects in the next few years. However, the minister emphasized several times during the trip that he had the greatest support in the traffic light when it came to digitization; also on the part of the FDP and the Greens.
At the WHO regional conference on Monday, Lauterbach will meet many colleagues from the healthcare sector. In his speech, the minister warned: “Only if we allow significant changes can we mitigate or prevent future pandemics.”
In an interview for the “RTL Nachtjournal”, Lauterbach also commented on the corona situation in Germany and defended the strict rules in the new Infection Protection Act: “At the moment the rules are being attacked because they are perceived as too strict. But those are exactly the rules , which we need to get this under control in time.” Lauterbach adds: “I believe that if the cases should increase, other European countries will also adopt even stricter rules.”
Lauterbach will fly back to Germany on Tuesday evening. There, he says, autumn could be difficult if high energy prices and “massive burdens” due to Corona come together. Nevertheless, the minister is optimistic: “I believe that we will grow with this challenge and that we will say in the end: Those were difficult times, but we made it.”