Inpatient Market Access for Digital Health Care

The current level of digitization in German hospitals is, especially in comparison to other countries, to be classified as inadequate and there is a lack of a basic digital infrastructure. In the course of competitiveness and against the background of good patient care, it is necessary for German hospitals to use financing options to implement digitization projects. While financing options at the macro level are slowed down by the bureaucracy and are therefore less suitable for short-term optimizations and at the meso level, the state funds made available by the federal states are not sufficient for comprehensive modernization, the most common route for optimizations in the area of digital health is on the micro level. These optimizations are implemented through the hospitals’ own budgets and contracts with individual insurance companies. Ensuring a high quality of care for all German hospitals is difficult because of the relatively high density of hospitals. The connection between the inpatient and outpatient sectors, which are largely separate in Germany, poses a particular challenge.