This report was written by Task Force Health Care and commissioned by the Netherlands Business Support Office and the Dutch Enterprise Agency in order to provide a clear overview of the digitalisation of the German healthcare sector and system.
Over the past few years, several events, activities and efforts have been made to improve bilateral relations between Germany and The Netherlands in the field of e-health and elderly care. At the centre of this has been the visit to Rhineland Palatinate and Saarland with King Willem Alexander, Queen Máxima and Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport Hugo de Jonge in October of 2018. Apart from that, the Dutch Life Sciences & Health community has been visiting the DMEA (formerly ConhIT) every year and organized the Dutch Digital Health Night at the Netherlands Embassy during that week. Furthermore, several visits from Germany to The Netherlands have taken place in order to show key German stakeholders the strengths and inventiveness of the Dutch healthcare sector.
As e-health is opening up in Germany, this report provides the background for sustained and intensified efforts to connect with the German market and find ways to cooperate and collaborate. The goal is to help Dutch SMEs, startups, knowledge institutes, healthcare providers understand the German market, find a right approach to enter it, and identify the various opportunities that exist. With this report as a cornerstone and starting point, a programmatic approach will be set up in order to intensify and deepen the ways the Dutch e-health and elderly care sector interacts with Germany.