Digitalization of Pneumological Care in the Outpatient Sector: An Inventory

The digitalization of the field of pneumology in Germany has a slowed down dynamic in the ambulatory sector, although the inclusion of telemedicine and its subgroups telemonitoring and telenursing makes it possible to treat a broad group of patients outside the existing practice structures, even with the addition of apps and monitoring of inhalers. The possibility to create professional networks and to build up an intersectoral structure between the outpatient and inpatient areas is desired and technically possible. Here, the field of sleep medicine is leading, whereby the existing obstacles to the development of data protection, reimbursement structures, and company-neutral data networks must be overcome.