title: The national e-medication approaches in Germany, Switzerland and Austria: A structured comparison.
abstract: Recent studies show that many patients are harmed due to missing or erroneous information on prescribed and taken medication. Many countries are thus introducing eHealth solutions to improve the availability of this medication information on a national scale (often called "e-medication"). The objective of this study is to analyse and compare the national e-medication solutions just being introduced in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
  
  
  
  Information on the situation in the three countries was collected within an expert group and complemented by an analysis of recent literature and legislation in each country.
  
  
  
  All three countries formulate comparable goals for the national eHealth solutions, focusing on improving medication safety. All three countries do not have a national e-prescription system. In all three countries, the implementation process was slower than expected and e-medication is not yet fully available. Differences of the three countries exist regarding chosen architectures, used standards, offered functionalities, and degree of voluntariness of participation.
  
  
  
  Nationwide e-medication systems and cross-border harmonization are acknowledged as important goals towards medication safety, but they develop slowly mainly due to privacy and security requirements, the need for law amendments and last but not least political interests.
authors.affiliation: Center for Medical Statistics, Informatics and Intelligent Systems, Medical University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria. Electronic address: walter.gall@meduniwien.ac.at.
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gall
authors.affiliation: IQTIG - Institut für Qualitätssicherung und Transparenz im Gesundheitswesen, 10787 Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: amin-farid.aly@iqtig.org.
authors.forename: Amin-Farid
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Aly
authors.affiliation: Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), 3003 Bern, Switzerland. Electronic address: reinhold.sojer@bag.admin.ch.
authors.forename: Reinhold
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sojer
authors.affiliation: eHealth & Telemedicine Unit, HUG - University Hospitals of Geneva, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland. Electronic address: stephane.spahni@hcuge.ch.
authors.forename: Stéphane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Spahni
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Informatics, UMIT - University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology, 6060 Hall in Tirol, Austria. Electronic address: elske.ammenwerth@umit.at.
authors.forename: Elske
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ammenwerth
mesh_terms: D001317:Austria; D055695:Electronic Prescribing / Q000592:standards*; D005858:Germany; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D008509:Medication Systems / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010595:Pharmacists; D010820:Physicians; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013557:Switzerland
keywords: Drug therapy safety; Medication reconciliation; Medication safety; Patient safety; e-Prescription; eHealth