“We are relaxed about the hospital reform”

In future, hospital IT will have to transcend sector boundaries, says Matthias Meierhofer, founder and CEO of Meierhofer AG, a leading HIS provider in German-speaking countries. At DMEA 2025, the company will show what the digital future of inpatient care could look like – from electronic patient file integration to improving documentation and medication by AI and robotics.

Everyone is talking about electronic patient records. What does it mean for hospitals?

We see the ePA as a great opportunity. It allows medical facilities to shape care more effectively. This is an added value, especially in view of the hospital reform. The transparency of medical care will be increased and this will have a positive effect in many areas. In the end, the introduction will probably take longer than initially planned. But that doesn't change the fact that it's high time for an ePA in Germany.

What will you show at DMEA 2025: how will M-KIS users actually use the ePA?

The ePA was primarily designed with doctors' surgeries in mind, which makes implementation in the multi-user environments of hospitals not entirely trivial. We show how we flank the ePA with our M-KIS in terms of processes. As we have been involved in the pilot phase with selected customers in the model regions right from the start, we have already been able to gain experience with the use of ePA 3.0.

For example, authorization for ePA access is granted automatically upon admission. After that, ePA documents can be viewed and downloaded where required, and inpatient documents can also be easily uploaded at the end. Our M-KIS will provide comprehensive support - with recommendations as to which documents should be uploaded to the ePA as standard, and also with notifications, for example when the ePA access time expires and the insurance card needs to be re-inserted.

You mentioned the hospital reform. What does it mean for digitalization?

The hospital reform will be a driver of digitalization. In particular, hospitals will expect solutions for cross-sector and/or cross-facility care. We manufacturers must have an answer to this. One thing is clear: the smaller the facility, the leaner the IT needs to be, both in terms of implementation and user complexity. Standardized solutions are needed, and it must be possible to largely hand over operational responsibility. With our tried-and-tested M-KIS Now concept, we can offer exactly that. However, it must also be said that a lot is still very unclear at the moment when it comes to the details of future care processes, not to mention the financing. We are planning to implement a virtual ward project with Asklepios. This involves residents of care facilities receiving further telemedical treatment in their familiar surroundings after initial treatment in the hospital emergency room. Such scenarios could be used to map some of the processes of the future care landscape.

In addition to processes, billing is the second major topic of the hospital reform. Hospitals will also bill outpatients, and at the same time a large inpatient billing system, IS-H, is disappearing from the market. Can Meierhofer AG step in?

We can. We will be presenting our M-KIS Billing and M-KIS Patient Management solutions, with which we are replacing IS-H, at the DMEA - productively, not just as PowerPoint slides. M-KIS Billing is a software-as-a-service solution that is live in cloud mode at four clinics and is currently picking up speed. We are taking a relaxed approach to outpatient billing, as we already have this in our portfolio thanks to our MVZ solutions. We offer a suitable solution for all facilities that provide acute care in any form whatsoever.

Can you also do artificial intelligence?

We integrate AI into our solutions with the aim of supporting hospital staff with organizational and documentary activities and, in the long term, with professional decisions. We have already implemented the first use cases, such as for the structured processing of medical history records from doctor-patient consultations. We show how we can create not only a transcript but also structured medical history documentation from a recording of the conversation virtually in real time. This can save a lot of work and at the same time enables a more natural doctor-patient conversation without a screen in between. We also have an AI-supported revision of doctor's letters with regard to spelling, grammar and wording. In the medical context, rule-based AI solutions are already in use.