I live in Germany since a few years not and I find so sad to see that they do not have any interconnected services and that there is so much red tape for everything.
The different health suppliers are not interconnected so they cannot send even the most basic things digitally, everything is posted to you and you take it to the other supplier.
It is not uncommon to receive CDs for x-rays or similar to take to another specialist. Makes you cringe.
And do not get me started on internet connections!
> It is not uncommon to receive CDs for x-rays or similar to take to another specialist. Makes you cringe.
As a counter point I have (in multiple industrialized countries) asked for DICOM files of my exams (following past injuries) to keep with me, since I changed countries a far bit. I always got confused shoulder shrugs from staff since there is never a "procedure" to safely share it outside their PACS.
At best I only got grubby screenshots in a pdf report, and only once I got a physical CD because I had a bit of small talk with the Radiography Technician directly.
I am not saying Germany is great but there is absolutely value in having physical offline storage of your data.
> It is not uncommon to receive CDs for x-rays or similar to take to another specialist
Funny, as when I had to be admitted in germany (I was on vacation there), the German staff was saying how backward NL was for having to send a dvd with x rays instead of just emailing it encrypted.
As an open question when are CD’s the best way to store data? X-ray scans with high resolution and high bit depth take up a lot of space though they are accessed infrequently and always in the full. For a 12x18 600 dpi scan with 64 bit depth is 0.6 GB. If these are tomograms and you need a stack of 1200-2000 then we are talking about a lot of data to store for several years to be accessed twice. A CD is not a bad choice for durable storage.
- I made an appointment online for sports medicine. Doctor says I need an xray - I go across the street and provide my insurance card, all digital. Go back to the doctors office and he's got it on his computer already
- All contract with insurance (TK) is digital and per app
- Probably only applies in big cities, but in Berlin I have 1Gbps internet for 30 euro a month
TK works well (and I like it), but it's an exception in Germany. Most things are really analogue. Less than a year ago you still had to get a printed sick note.
The price of internet also seems to be a kind of promotion, with 1Gps costing twice as much on average.
The different health suppliers are not interconnected so they cannot send even the most basic things digitally, everything is posted to you and you take it to the other supplier.
It is not uncommon to receive CDs for x-rays or similar to take to another specialist. Makes you cringe.
And do not get me started on internet connections!