Arizona Tribune - Germany's ePA Rollout Puts Europe's Health-Data Supply Chain to the Test, Black Book Provider Pulse Finds

MUNICH, DE / ACCESS Newswire / July 1, 2026 / Black Book Research today released findings from a Germany provider pulse survey of 137 hospital IT leaders, clinical executives, ambulatory IT leaders, pharmacy and medication-management stakeholders, and digital transformation executives, examining whether Germany's electronic patient record, known as the ePA, is moving from national infrastructure deployment to usable clinical data supply chain.

Black Book initiated the Germany survey following its Q2 2026 European interoperability and EHDS readiness research, which found that Europe's health systems are becoming more connected but still struggle to deliver structured, reusable and workflow-embedded health information. Germany was selected for deeper review because its ePA rollout represents one of Europe's largest tests of whether mass patient-record activation can become trusted, searchable and decision-ready clinical infrastructure.

"Germany is testing whether national patient records can operate as a reliable health-data supply chain," said Doug Brown, Founder of Black Book. "The decisive question is no longer whether records can be created or connected. It is whether medication data, discharge information, diagnostic documents and clinical updates are complete, current, searchable and usable when care teams need them."

Key Findings: Germany

• 93% said ePA success will be judged by the clinical usefulness of available data, not by the number of records created or technically connected.

• 91% said EHDS readiness should be measured by provider workflow adoption and data usability, not only by standards conformance or national infrastructure availability.

• 89% said Germany's ePA rollout is strategically important to EHDS readiness, but not yet sufficiently embedded into provider workflow.

• 85% said medication-list functionality has high safety potential, but only if medication data is complete, timely and consistently reconciled.

• 76% said current ePA-related processes add documentation, upload, search, reconciliation or administrative burden.

• 93% said provider trust in ePA data will remain limited unless responsibility for data quality, updates and reconciliation is clarified.

• 70% said clinically useful information is not yet consistently easy to locate within the ePA workflow.

• 89% said ePA integration with local HIS/KIS, practice-management, pharmacy, laboratory or document systems remains uneven.

• 72% said Germany's ePA experience is globally relevant for countries pursuing national patient records, health-data exchange or EHDS-style frameworks.

"The first generation of interoperability measurement asked whether systems could exchange data," Brown said. "Germany shows the next question: can shared data be trusted as a usable clinical asset? If the information is incomplete, hard to find or unclear in ownership, connectivity alone will not change care delivery."

Medication Data Emerges as the Highest-Value Test Case

Medication management emerged as the clearest near-term opportunity for ePA value. Respondents identified medication lists as the area where reliable shared data could most quickly improve safety, reconciliation, transitions of care and provider confidence.

However, respondents also said medication data will be the fastest area to expose weaknesses in data completeness, update responsibility and workflow integration. If medication lists are incomplete, outdated or difficult to reconcile, clinicians may continue relying on local systems, patient recall, pharmacy calls or manual verification.

"Medication data is where Germany's ePA can prove clinical value fastest," Brown said. "It is also where trust will be lost fastest if the information is not current, reconciled and easy to act on. For EHDS, medication data should be treated as a frontline readiness indicator, not just a data category."

Data Quality and Integration Define the Next Phase

Black Book's findings indicate that German providers are increasingly focused on who is responsible for keeping shared patient-record content accurate, current and clinically useful. Seventy-three percent of respondents said provider trust in ePA data will remain limited unless responsibility for data quality, updates and reconciliation is clarified.

Respondents most often characterized Germany's ePA challenge as an ecosystem integration issue. The provider experience reflects the combined operation of national ePA infrastructure, hospital information systems, practice-management systems, pharmacy systems, laboratory and document workflows, Telematikinfrastruktur services, KIM communication, local configuration, data-governance policy and clinical change management.

Technology organizations referenced by respondents included ePA infrastructure participants, hospital information system vendors, practice-management vendors, pharmacy-system suppliers, interoperability service providers, Telematikinfrastruktur participants and document-management vendors. Respondents did not identify one vendor category as solely responsible for current workflow challenges.

"The ePA does not become useful inside one platform," Brown said. "It becomes useful when hospitals, practices, pharmacies, laboratories, payers and national services operate as a coordinated clinical data supply chain. That is the implementation lesson other countries should take from Germany."

Why Germany Matters to EHDS

Black Book said Germany's experience is globally relevant because EHDS will depend on more than compliant infrastructure and cross-border exchange standards. Shared health data must be complete enough to trust, structured enough to reuse, searchable enough to find, and embedded enough to fit into care delivery.

"EHDS will not be judged only by whether data moves," Brown said. "It will be judged by whether the right data reaches the right user in a form that improves decisions without adding burden. Germany's ePA rollout is giving Europe an early look at that harder test."

Methodology

Black Book's Germany provider pulse included 137 healthcare IT and provider executives with direct or adjacent responsibility for digital health, ePA implementation, clinical operations, interoperability, data governance, medication management or health IT strategy.

Respondents included 42 hospital CIOs, CMIOs, IT directors and digital transformation leaders; 31 hospital clinical executives, medical directors and nursing informatics leaders; 24 ambulatory or practice IT and physician-organization leaders; 18 health system operations, compliance and data-governance executives; 12 pharmacy, medication-management and care-coordination leaders; and 10 vendor-selection, procurement and interoperability program leaders.

The survey was fielded between April 28 and June 3. Respondents were screened for professional role and healthcare delivery relevance. Because the sample is provider-sourced and not a probability sample of all German healthcare professionals, results should be interpreted as directional provider sentiment rather than population-level prevalence.

About Black Book Research

Black Book Research is an independent healthcare technology and services market research firm specializing in client satisfaction, user experience, operational performance and competitive intelligence surveys. Black Book collects frontline user and buyer intelligence across healthcare IT, outsourcing, services and digital transformation markets. The full 2026 State of Healthcare IT: Germany is available to industry stakeholders for no charge until July 31 at https://blackbookmarketresearch.com/germany-state-of-acute-care-ehr-and-digital-health-2026

Media Contact: Black Book Research Media Relations
Kat Johnson [email protected]
https://www.blackbookmarketresearch.com

SOURCE: Black Book Research

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