eHealth Europa

Austrian low power sensor firm ams AG has received funding from two Austrian Government ministries to develop a smart device to provide accurate testing for Covid-19. The hand held device is directly connected to a "medical data cloud", does not require a laboratory, and can deliver accurate test results within 15 minutes. The two Austrian Government departments funding the new device are the Federal Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK), and the Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs (BMDW). ams has used the funds to develop a connected, smart version of a lateral flow test (LFT) device. Lateral flow tests are a standard approach for rapid point of care (PoC) testing. LFTs, which are usually analogue devices, are typically intuitive and easy to use, and are subject to strict regulatory requirements. A pregnancy strip test is a typical example of an analogue LFT device. The challenge for ams was threefold: to cre...

Spain is planning a big boost to spending on healthcare and digital health in next year’s budget. Public procurement also looks set to become more open and competitive. With Spain still recovering from the effects of the Coronavirus, and with subsequent waves of infection preoccupying policy makers and the healthcare establishment, the Government plans big increases in spending across the board on healthcare in the 2021 state budget. The country’s Ministry of Finance has published a note in the Official State Gazette (Boletín Oficial del Estado) that lays out the Government’s plans to increase spending and expand healthcare and digital health. These include strengthening “capacity to respond to emergencies” and “investments in science, research and innovation”. Digital healthcare is seen as critical to improving Spain’s response to future waves of the pandemic. The budget will make funds available for “improving the digitisation of health services”. The digital healthcare infrastr...

Austria is planning a vaccination e-record as part of its response to the COVID-19 health crisis. A pilot programme is currently under development. The country is also expanding the scope of its ELGA EHR to incorporate greater physiological and medical imaging data integration.

The central German state of Hesse has become embroiled in a row over its decision to use software from American company Palantir to track the spread of coronavirus.

Spain's Basque Country health service has opened its citizens' health records to civil servants responsible for adjudicating disability benefits and detecting fraud.

France’s national Hospital Buyers’ Network (Resah) has awarded contracts for hospital electronic patient records for public hospitals nationwide to seven vendors. The contracts affect 850 hospitals across France, which are part of the public sector area hospital groupings, or GHTs. The contract, worth 25 million euros, is valid for four years.

German Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn is planning a new law to control when and what doctors can access on patients’ electronic health records (EHR).

German ehealth software firm CompuGroup Medical SE has acquired French primary care records specialist Epsilog for EUR 72 million. The acquisition expands CGM’s position in France and boosts its presence in the primary care software market.

A study by Germany’s Chaos Computer Club (CCC), weekly news magazine Der Spiegel, and broadcaster NDR has uncovered major security weaknesses in Germany’s EHR system, the eGK.