- By Miriam Friedmann
German Hospital Future Act: How to implement funding measures easily and quickly
The German Hospital Future Act (KHZG) supports German hospitals in their digitization efforts. The initiative focuses on general digitization, IT security and the creation of modern emergency capacities. However, the IT departments of hospitals are overloaded - meeting the implementation deadline of the end of 2024 is impossible for many. That's why the deadlines have now been extended. Find out in this article how you can implement KHZG funding measures without a long-term IT project, regardless of the deadlines that now apply.
German Hospital Future Act in a nutshell: Eleven funding measures accelerate digitization
The German federal and state governments are providing more than four billion Euros in funding through the Hospital Future Act. These funds will be allocated to measures in eleven funding categories. These include for example:
- Digital patient portals (funding item 2)
- Partially/fully automated clinical decision support (funding item 4)
- Service reconciliation and cloud computing systems (funding item 7)
- Telemedicine (funding item 9)
- IT security (funding item 10)
Originally, hospitals were threatened with penalties if they failed to implement funding criteria 2 to 6 by the end of December 2024. These are now off the table for the time being: the German Hospital Federation (DKG) and the GKV-Spitzenverband have agreed that hospitals can also complete their KHZG projects after 2024, provided they have been commissioned by the end of 2024.
The previous mandatory proof of use of the defined mandatory applications is suspended until the end of 2026. Hospitals will have to state for the first time in December 2027 whether and how the mandatory projects are used in the respective hospitals.
The KHZG: Not free of criticism
The German Hospital Future Act is driving digitization, but is also being criticized by one of the largest hospital operators, Asklepios, among others: due to the high effort involved in submitting applications and the sometimes lengthy approval processes.
Implementation also poses challenges for hospitals. This is because technical service providers, software vendors and, above all, in-house IT departments are working at full capacity or are overloaded. Therefore, timely implementation by the end of 2024 was not feasible for many hospitals.
"In our view, funding programs designed purely for investment measures fall short against the backdrop of massively overburdened hospital IT and the lack of specialist staff. Modern, scalable IT infrastructures are based on cloud technologies and software-as-a-service. For hospitals, this means less initial investment, but recurring costs. At the same time, cloud and SaaS solutions relieve IT in the long term by outsourcing infrastructure maintenance and operation. The postponement of the deadline therefore allows to catch a breath in the short term - but without a fundamental rethink of IT investments and their promotion, nothing will change in the chronic overload of hospital IT," comments Tobias Anger, CTO at Telepaxx Medical Data, on the deadline extension.
KHZG projects without major IT effort
Funded data sharing portal to be implemented in just a few weeks
Telepaxx Medical Data offers a digitales medical data sharing portal, that is established in the market and can be easily integrated by hospitals.
The cloud-based solution is eligible for funding under funding item 2 and can be implemented in just a few weeks.
Promoting cloud infrastructure
In general, cloud solutions open up new technological possibilities for hospitals. These are specifically promoted by the KHZG in funding item 7.
Cloud infrastructures can also increase IT security. Due to distributed data centers and high investments in security measures, specialized cloud providers generally offer a higher level of protection, e.g. for stored patient data.
As the operator of the leading health cloud in Germany, Telepaxx offers privacy-compliant cloud solutions designed specifically for hospitals.
Based on the Telepaxx Medical Data Cloud - TMD Cloud for short - you can easily implement the following applications, among others:
- Digital patient portals (funding item 2)
- Partially/fully automated clinical decision support (funding item 4)
- Cloud-based PACS incl. vendor neutral archive (funding item 7)
Vendor neutrality and cloud for greater speed
In general, two aspects help hospitals implement your granted projects more quickly:
- Vendor neutrality or interoperability with existing systems
- Managed services in the form of a cloud infrastructure as well as the use of software-as-a-service to relieve the internal IT department
Telepaxx Medical Data, for example, offers both with the TMD Cloud. This means that new solutions can be easily integrated into the existing system landscape without having to purchase their own maintenance-intensive hardware.
Initial Consultation
Need help with KHZG projects?
Feel free to schedule a no-obligation consultation with me to learn how Telepaxx Medical Data can help you with your KHZG-funded projects and disburden your IT department. KHZG-geförderten Projekten unterstützen und Ihre IT-Abteilung entlasten kann.
Other articles that may interest you.
European Health Data Space: a framework for sharing medical data
This article briefly summarize the purpose and goals of the European Health Data Space.
Bavarian Hospital Act: patient data permitted in the cloud
Bavarian hospitals have been allowed to process patient data in the cloud since June 2022. You can read about the advantages of this and what to look out for here.
Faster diagnosis and more efficient help for people thanks to AI in diagnostics: Read about where artificial intelligence is already being used in radiology in particular and what it can do - including three application examples.