Germany’s national healthcare system adopts Matrix!

Hi folks,

We’re incre­dibly exci­ted to offi­ci­ally announce that the nati­o­nal agency for the digi­ta­li­sa­tion of the health­care system in Germany (gema­tik) has selec­ted Matrix as the open stan­dard on which to base all its inter­o­pe­ra­ble instant messa­ging stan­dard – the TI-Messen­ger.

gema­tik has rele­a­sed a concept paper that explains the initi­a­tive in full.

TL;DR

With the TI-Messen­ger, gema­tik is crea­ting a nati­on­wide decen­tra­li­sed private commu­ni­ca­tion network – based on Matrix – to support poten­ti­ally more than 150,000 health­care orga­ni­sa­ti­ons within Germany’s nati­o­nal health­care system. It will provide end-to-end encryp­ted VoIP/Video and messa­ging for the whole health­care system, as well as the ability to share health­care based data, images and files.

Initi­ally every health­care provi­der (HCP) with an HBA (HPC ID card) will be able to choose their own TI-Messen­ger provi­der. The home­se­ver for HCP accounts will be hosted by the provi­der’s data­cen­tre. The home­ser­ver for insti­tu­ti­ons can be hosted by TI-Messen­ger provi­ders, or on-premise.

Each orga­ni­sa­tion and indi­vi­dual will there­fore retain complete owners­hip and control of their commu­ni­ca­tion data – while being able to share it secu­rely within the health­care system with end-to-end encryp­tion by default. All servers in the Matrix-based private fede­ra­tion will be hosted within Germany.

Need­less to say, secu­rity is key when under­pin­ning the entire nati­on’s health­care infras­truc­ture and safe­guar­ding sensi­tive pati­ent data. As such, the entire imple­men­ta­tion will be accre­di­ted by BSI (Fede­ral Office for Infor­ma­tion Secu­rity) and BfDI (Fede­ral Commis­si­o­ner for Data Protec­tion and Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion).

The full context…

Germany’s digi­tal care moder­ni­sa­tion law (“Digi­tale Versor­gung und Pflege Moder­ni­si­e­rungs Gesetz” or DVPMG), which came into force in June 2021, spells out the need for an instant messa­ging solu­tion.

The urgency has incre­a­sed by a signi­fi­cant rise in the use of instant messa­ging and video confe­ren­cing within the health­care system – for instance, the amount of medi­cal prac­ti­ces using messen­ger servi­ces doubled in 2020 compa­red to 2018 (much of this using inse­cure messa­ging solu­ti­ons).

gema­tik, majo­rity-owned by Germany’s Fede­ral Ministry of Health, is respon­si­ble for the stan­dar­di­sed digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion of Germany’s health­care sector. It focu­ses on impro­ving effi­ci­ency and intro­du­cing new ways of working by setting, testing and certifying health­care tech­no­logy inclu­ding elec­tro­nic health cards, elec­tro­nic pati­ent records and e-pres­crip­ti­ons.

TI-Messen­ger is gema­tik’s tech­ni­cal speci­fi­ca­tion for an inter­o­pe­ra­ble secure instant messa­ging stan­dard. The health­care industry will be able to build a wide range of apps based on TI-Messen­ger speci­fi­ca­ti­ons knowing that, being built on Matrix, all those apps will inter­o­pe­rate.

More than 150,000 orga­ni­sa­ti­ons – ranging from local doctors to clinics, hospi­tals, and insu­rance compa­nies – can poten­ti­ally stan­dar­dise on instant messa­ging thanks to gema­tik’s TI-Messen­ger initi­a­tive.

The road to inter­o­pe­ra­bi­lity

By 1 Octo­ber 2021, TI-Messen­ger will initi­ally specify how commu­ni­ca­tion should work in prac­tice between health­care profes­si­o­nals (HCPs). Physi­ci­ans will be able to find and commu­ni­cate with each other via TI-Messen­ger appro­ved apps – speci­fi­ca­ti­ons include secure authen­ti­ca­tion mecha­nisms with elec­tro­nic health profes­si­o­nal cards (eHBAs), elec­tro­nic insti­tu­tion cards (SMC-B) and a central FHIR direc­tory. The first compli­ant apps for HCPs are expec­ted to be licen­sed by Q2 2022.

Eric Grey (product mana­ger for TI-Messen­ger at gema­tik), reckons there will initi­ally be around 10–15 TI-Messen­ger compli­ant Matrix-based apps for HCP commu­ni­ca­ti­ons avai­la­ble from diffe­rent vendors.

Health­care profes­si­o­nals will be able to choose a TI-Messen­ger provi­der, who will be hosting their perso­nal accounts and provide the messen­ger-client.

Health­care orga­ni­sa­ti­ons will choose a TI-Messen­ger provi­der to build the dedi­ca­ted home­ser­ver infras­truc­ture (on prem or in a data center), provide the client and ongoing support.

What does this mean for the Matrix commu­nity?

Matrix is alre­ady inte­gral to huge parts of the public sector; from the French govern­ment’s Tchap plat­form, to Bundes­wehr’s use of BwMes­sen­ger and adop­tion by univer­si­ties and scho­ols across Europe.

Germany’s health­care system stan­dar­di­sing on Matrix takes this to enti­rely the next level – and we can’t wait to see the rest of Europe (and the world!) converge on Matrix for health­care!

We’ll have more info about TI-Messen­ger on this week’s Matrix Live, out on Friday – stay tuned!