E-prescriptions causing chaos, German pharmacists complain

Instead of making everything easier, German pharmacies are complaining that e-prescriptions are causing them a lot of headaches. 

German E-prescription system beset by disruptions and downtime

The head of the German pharmacists’ association, Thomas Preis, has called on the federal digital agency Gematik to urgently improve the stability of the e-prescription system, saying that it has been beset by disruptions and downtime in recent weeks. 

“The e-prescription is outperforming Deutsche Bahn in terms of unreliability,” Preis told the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND). “A cancelled train is annoying, but an unavailable e-prescription can have significant consequences for people’s health.” 

Although e-prescriptions were first introduced in 2023, they became mandatory in January 2024. The system is designed to be simpler than the old paper prescriptions: after a visit to their GP, a patient should be able to simply present their health insurance card at the pharmacy, or use the e-prescription app (E-Rezept App) and send it to their chosen pharmacy. 

However, the system has been beset by a swathe of problems that seem to be intensifying in recent weeks. Preis said that in the last two weeks alone, there have been five days of complete outages or significant disruptions to the e-prescription system, each time affecting tens of thousands of patients. 

Pharmacies ask for more flexibility to provide medications during downtime

“There is no alternative to digitising the healthcare system. But this unreliability is unacceptable," Preis said. "We need the greatest possible reliability in digital applications for electronic prescriptions."

He said that, while Gematik needed to work to improve reliability, it could also provide some more flexibility to enable pharmacies to supply patients with medications “quickly and unbureaucratically” in the event of failures.