What will it take for Germany to embrace digital health?

Germans are not fast adopters of digital technology. With a fondness for using cash and low uptake of social media compared with most countries, they fiercely guard their right to control how personal information, including health records, is shared.1 When the independent foundation Bertelsmann Stiftung compiled an index measuring 17 countries’ progress in healthcare digitisation in 2019, Germany ranked second from the bottom (the UK came sixth).2

But 2020 is proving a time of change. Jörg Debatin, chairman of the Health Innovation Hub at the German Federal Ministry of Health. says that more than 100 000 German physicians signed up to video platforms within eight weeks over March and April when the country went into lockdown—and are using these platforms extensively. “I cannot imagine it going away, because people like it and want it,” he says.

“Technology has been available for a while, but both in Germany and in other places we're seeing that doctors are now using it because they have to,” says Daniel Nathrath, chief executive officer of Ada Health, a digital health firm with offices in Germany, US, and UK. “Many stakeholders are realising that digital solutions can make their life and their patient's lives better.”