Digital healthcare: Treating patients at home Skip to main content
Image: a person holding a smartphone with both hands, a healthcare app is opened; Copyright: PantherMedia/Andryi Popov

Topic of the Month May 2021

Digital healthcare: Treating patients at home

Digital health apps (DiGA) are increasingly becoming part of patients' everyday lives. Since the "apps on prescription" are thoroughly tested by the BfArM before approval, they are currently only tailored to individual diseases. In this Topic of the Month, we take a look at the place DiGAs already occupy in healthcare today and how they will continue to develop in the future.

DiGA: App on prescription
Image: Hand of a woman holding a smartphone with an opened health app; Copyright: PantherMedia/grinvalds
Fostering healthy behavior, improving preventive care, and managing chronic conditions: medical apps can make personal health easier. After the launch of the Digital Healthcare Act (DVG) in 2019, Germany has turned over a new leaf in healthcare. Physicians in Germany can now prescribe digital health applications with the costs covered by statutory insurance.
Read the article about DiGAs here

DiGA: Learning Self-Management Skills with Evidence-Based Information
Image: A person with brown jacket is holding a smartphone; Copyright: PantherMedia / bernardbodo
Digitization continues to open vast opportunities in medical technology. As a result, Germany reimburses the prescription of an increasing number of approved digital health applications (German: Digitale Gesundheitsanwendungen, DiGA). Specialists collaborate to develop these apps, which offer a variety of low-threshold services to help patients get informed and take charge of their health and disease self-management.
Read the interview with Prof. Anja Mehnert-Theuerkauf here

How to Successfully Advance Digital Health Applications
Image: Cell phone displays diabetes management data in an app; Copyright: PantherMedia / VIVOOO

The benefits of digital health applications are numerous and include the flexibility to self-monitor your illness from home with a mobile device. One caveat: Digital health applications must abide by technical and legal frameworks to be recognized as such.  
Read the interview with Dr. Benedikt Zacher here

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