A digital Rhinelander in Berlin’s IT scene

Sylvia Thun is an expert in information and communication technologies in the healthcare system and, as a BIH Visiting Professor, is building up an eHealth and Interoperability Core Unit. To do this, she regularly commutes between the Rhineland and Berlin. We took the opportunity to have an analogue, as well as digital, exchange with her about the development of eHealth in Germany and about her experiences as a cheerful Rhinelander in the capital.

Professor Thun, honestly now: even as a “digital brain”, are there any areas of your life that you’d rather lead analogously?

Yes: I’m particularly thinking of my sport – karate, in which it’s healthier to carry no wearables, i.e. portable computer systems, as they could injure your opponent.

In your opinion, where should clear boundaries be drawn for the electronic processing, use and exchange of data?

As soon as a person does not wish to release their data, that request should be honored. The vendor’s general terms of business should therefore be easily comprehensible and our laws should stipulate heavy punishments for “data robbers”. That is not a trivial offence!

In your view, which development in the field of eHealth has particularly good prospects of success at the moment? And what‘s the biggest challenge at present?

The regulatory requirements from Europe and the German authorities, such as the infection prevention reporting system of the Robert Koch Institute or the event notification for medical products at the German Institute of Medical Documentation and Information are our biggest political challenges. What is at stake here is the safety of people in our country and worldwide. To that end, we’ve specified worldwide standards that are currently being implemented. Oncology therapy which uses new methods based on molecular biology and pathology, and which – together with the patient’s data – can lead to the right therapy decision, is a large and important field for future developments.

What would the barrier-free exchange of medical data in everyday clinical practice in an ideal world be like?

When the data was entered, it would already be subject to standards that the doctor or documentation officer would actually not feel at all. This data would then flow into other systems and be available to all treating physicians. The patient would have access to the data collected about them as well and could, if they wanted to, make them available to science in an anonymized form. 

In another interview, you said that patients have a right to IT standards. Who has to invest the most time and money in standardization and who can benefit from it?

Everyone benefits from IT standards: the IT industry has investment safety for its products and can reuse them;