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Digital Health: How Well Prepared Are Public Health Offices for Pandemics?

Policy1 min read

This article looks at how ready Germany's local public health offices (Gesundheitsämter) are for the next pandemic. It says they still struggle with the basics of digital work, even after the COVID-19 crisis.

What happened

A podcast talk between journalist Marie-Claire Koch and two guests looked at digital tools in German health offices. The guests are Nicolai Savaskan, a senior doctor who worked in a Berlin health office during COVID-19, and Mesut Yavuz, an IT consultant who led digital projects there. They say that technology alone will not be enough for future crises.

Why the old systems failed

During COVID-19, infection reports often arrived by fax and were typed into tables by hand. The offices had only basic tools, such as Excel and Access. Modern statistics software could not be connected to the old administration systems. Small spelling differences, like 'Maier' and 'Meyer', could turn one person into two cases.

Key numbers and facts

  • About 400 health offices work in Germany.
  • The WHO wants every country to spot new outbreaks within 24 hours by 2030.
  • A special program, the 'Pakt für den Öffentlichen Gesundheitsdienst', gave 800 million euros for digital work.
  • Only about 5 percent of that money went to joint projects that work across states.

Why it matters

Good digital tools help health offices find vulnerable groups, such as people in care homes or dialysis centers, early. This lets them protect those people without locking down whole buildings. Without better systems, offices may react slowly and too broadly in the next crisis.

What to watch

  • Whether the 800 million euros lead to shared, open-source systems across Germany.
  • Progress on the WHO early-warning center in Berlin, which uses artificial intelligence.
  • Whether health offices can connect their data systems to each other.
  • How political division affects public health work, as the guests' study discusses.

Glossary

Gesundheitsämter
Local public health offices in Germany that track diseases and protect public health.
WHO
World Health Organization, the United Nations agency for global health.
Excel
A spreadsheet program used to store and sort data in tables.
Access
A database program from Microsoft used to store and search large sets of data.

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