Berlin – “The Health Data Utilization Act offers the opportunity to promote the supply of innovative medicines and digital health applications. For this purpose, however, the new health research data center should definitely abolish existing data monopolies in the health sector,” comments BAH General Manager Dr. Hubertus Cranz presented the draft bill of the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) on the planned Health Data Utilization Act (GDNG) presented on August 4, 2023. The association hearing on this will take place on Monday. With the law, the BMG wants to improve the use of health data for research and development as well as for health care, especially in the pharmaceuticals sector.
In addition to rapid and coordinated application processing, neutrality when accessing health data is particularly important for the BAH: “The uniform and common data basis plays a decisive role in achieving negotiation results in order to do justice to the various interests in the field of pharmaceuticals and digital health applications . The health research data center, which was founded only recently, could make a decisive contribution to improving patient care in a timely manner,” says Cranz.
Access to Cancer Registry Data
In addition, the BAH sees a need for improvement with regard to access to linked data from the health research data center and the clinical cancer register. It should be clearly defined here that pharmaceutical companies also have access to this data, especially in the context of the early benefit assessment. Health care data are currently not sufficiently taken into account in the early benefit assessment of the AMNOG.
Involvement of service providers
The present draft also provides that health and long-term care insurance funds should be authorized to carry out data-based evaluations of the personal health care of their insured persons, to improve health care and to increase patient safety. This gives the health and long-term care insurance companies the new opportunity to address their policyholders on an individual basis about health care. “The issue is of a sensitive nature as patients normally discuss their individual health care with their doctor or pharmacist. It is therefore essential to involve these service providers in advance in the communication between health and long-term care insurance companies and the patients. This is the only way to increase patients’ trust in the use of their health data,” emphasizes BAH General Manager Cranz.
The Federal Association of Drug Manufacturers (BAH) has the largest number of members in the drug industry in Germany. It represents the interests of around 400 member companies that employ around 80,000 people in Germany. The companies organized in the BAH make a significant contribution to securing the supply of pharmaceuticals in Germany. They provide almost 80 percent of the over-the-counter medicines sold in pharmacies and almost two thirds of the prescription medicines, as well as a large part of the material medical products for patients. There is more information about the BAH at www.bah-bonn.de.