Science council urges better use of health data

Lack of digitalisation and data silos slow down German wellbeing progress, experts say

Germany needs to urgently catch up in making health data visible, accessible and usable, the Wissenschaftsrat (WR), the German council of science and humanities, has announced.

In a position paper, the council argued that the risks of digitising health data, such as intrusion and the leaking of sensitive information, are often overemphasised compared to the opportunities such data could offer for public debate. “The considerable potentials for society and the individual are largely unknown, and a social consensus on the use and sharing of health data is not apparent,” the council, which advises the federal government, said in a statement.