Challenges in telemedicine: Interview with IT manager Andreas Henkel

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How can you meet the new challenges in telemedicine? We asked Andreas Henkel, IT manager at the Jena University Hospital and a member of this year's TELEMED program committee. 

At the National Forum for Health Telematics and Telemedicine (TELEMED), which takes place as part of the Health Week Berlin, representatives from health policy and industry discuss the important questions in the eHealth era. We will be there too: Telepaxx Managing Director Andreas Dobler will give a lecture on “Patient Rights in the Cloud” on October 14, 2014 and then take part in the panel discussion “Legally Secure Documentation and Archiving in Health Telematics”. In advance we could talk to Andreas Henkel about the new requirements for telemedicine.

Mr. Henkel, you are not only on the TELEMED program committee, but you are also moderating the lectures on the topic "Outlook for the further development of health telematics and telemedicine". What are the particular challenges with eHealth technologies?

Andreas Henkel: It is about removing the obstacles in the implementation of the telematics infrastructure. Established European and international communication standard specifications (e.g. Smart Open Services for European Patients – epSOS) must be taken into account here and adapted in a meaningful way to German circumstances without going your own German way. Interoperability not only has to be mandatory here, but also has to be supported with financial incentives in care for high-performance medicine, especially for maximum care providers at a university hospital. In order to achieve interoperability, it is essential that the IT processes provide corresponding "Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise" (IHE) profiles. The development of the IHE profiles itself has not been completed and must be developed further in the sense of the desired use of a complexity-reducing use for the connection of processes. The existing focus exclusively on doctor-doctor communication should be expanded to include communication elements that enable direct data exchange between the patient and the healthcare provider.

In your opinion, could the proposed eHealth law help to meet these challenges?

Andreas Henkel: If the aforementioned orientation is followed and clear, implementable structures are given, I see an advantage in legal standardization. It is important that the history of the introduction to the eGK and HBA is learned and that good implementation concepts become mandatory.

What are you doing at Jena University Hospital to be prepared for these challenges?

Andreas Henkel: The University Hospital Jena has been working on a telematics infrastructure in Thuringia for several years. A project for care in the context of geriatric medicine is currently supporting a structure for dementia patients with a telematics infrastructure. Here the approach of the case record structure in specification 2.0 is followed with IHE. In compliance with the IHE profiles, this solution is expediently expanded by data exchange with the patient using methods such as the HealthDataSpace solution.

Andreas Henkel is the Head of Information Technology at Jena University Hospital. Before that, the business IT specialist worked as IT department manager in the SRH Group and before that in the Black Forest-Baar Clinic Villingen-Schwenningen. Henkel is very familiar with the many different IT requirements of a university clinic, since he went through several stations in the University Medical Center Göttingen immediately after completing his studies.

Photos: © Andreas Henkel (portrait); © pexels.com (cover photo)

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