Germany to Build 'Health Hub' with Digital Health Law: FHIR Standard is Key

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Germany is accelerating digitalization in its healthcare sector. The new Digital Health Act (GeDIG) mandates that the electronic patient record (ePA) become a central 'Health Hub.' This system will allow patients to perform full-text searches of their medical records and manage digital vaccination certificates. Furthermore, e-referrals are scheduled to become mandatory. Technologically, FHIR standards are adopted as the foundation for data linkage. Major IT companies like SAP are developing systems based on HL7-FHIR standards. Additionally, the security infrastructure is being overhauled; electronic health professional cards (eHBA) and institution cards (SMC-B) are migrating from RSA-2048 to ECC-256 encryption. These efforts align with international standardization trends, making FHIR API readiness a critical task for healthcare providers.