Germany’s e-prescription system faces criticism over repeated outages

The German Federal Union of Pharmacists' Associations (ABDA) is sounding the alarm over the persistent instability of the country's electronic prescription (E-Rezept) system. The association is calling on Gematik, the federal government’s digital health agency responsible for the system, to urgently improve its reliability.

‍

ABDA Chairman Thomas Preis voiced strong criticism in an interview with the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland, saying: “The e-prescription is now outpacing Deutsche Bahn in terms of unreliability. A delayed train is inconvenient, but a non-functional e-prescription can have serious consequences for people’s health.”

‍

‍

Germany introduced the e-prescription system as a key pillar in its push to digitize the healthcare sector. The aim is to streamline the prescribing and dispensing of medications through a digital platform connecting doctors, pharmacies, and patients. However, frequent technical failures have severely undermined confidence in the system.

‍

Just this Wednesday, the platform experienced another nationwide outage. According to Preis, there were five days of total failure or major disruption in the past two weeks alone, affecting either the system itself or the underlying telematics infrastructure. Each time, tens of thousands of patients were impacted, often left unable to fill necessary prescriptions.

‍

While emphasizing that digitalization in healthcare is essential and unavoidable, Preis stressed that the current performance of the e-prescription system is “no longer acceptable.” He urged Gematik to take immediate action to ensure that pharmacies and doctors' offices can rely on a stable and functional system. Furthermore, Preis called for emergency flexibility regulations to be put in place. In the event of system failures, pharmacists should be granted more autonomy to dispense medications without full digital authorization, ensuring that patients are not left without urgent treatments due to technical glitches.

‍

“We need the highest level of reliability in digital applications like the E-Rezept,” he said. “And when the system fails, pharmacists must be able to act quickly and pragmatically.” As Germany continues to modernize its healthcare infrastructure, the pressure is mounting to ensure that digital solutions like the E-Rezept live up to expectations, particularly when patient health is on the line.

‍

‍