(Letzte Aktualisierung: 12.07.17)

Intermeshing of research and patient care

Intermeshing of medical research and patient care

The TMF regards the intermeshing of medical research and patient treatment as a key challenge for the years to come. Especially at a time when the economic basis of the health system is being widely debated, the importance of a close alignment of patient treatment toward the latest scientific findings is particularly clear. To achieve just this, efficient transfer of research findings to patient treatment is vital.

At the same time, clinical research can benefit from good, high-quality data from medical patient treatment. A lot of the data that is recorded today in clinical trials is already included in documentation systems in the hospital and outpatient sectors of the health system. In a comprehensive project, the TMF asks which hurdles in terms of data protection regulations and technology need to be negotiated in order to enable the dual use of medical data for research purposes and patient care. Moreover, the various quality requirements and target criteria for the documentation in both areas have to be compared and evaluated.

Against the backdrop of the telematics infrastructure for the healthcare sector which is currently being developed, the issue of electronic patient files that can be used universally must be addressed as a matter of urgency. For this reason, the TMF is not only looking at this issue in various projects but has included it as a key issue on the Advisory Board's agenda. In particular the existing legal hurdles, which have been appraised by the TMF, on the use of the electronic health card (eHC) for research purposes are an important issue for this Board in which both ministries involved (German Federal Ministry of Health and German Federal Ministry for Education and Research) are represented.

In addition, issues such as the terminological standardization of research and patient treatment data, IT-supported development of medical guidelines and the provision of research data for the IQWiG (German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care) were addressed in various projects.