German doctors say no to centrally stored patient records
Recent reports about incidents of data loss in the British healthcare system have alarmed medical doctors in other European countries.
In Germany, the national association of doctors in private practice (NAV Virchow Bund) has adopted a stance advocating the complete abandonment of all concepts of central data storage in the German national health IT project.
The doctors’ body is now calling for the German Ministry of Health to halt all plans for centrally-stored shared electronic patient records, due to the potential risks to patient confidentiality. NAV Virchow represents around 20,000 doctors in private practice.
