Prof. Dr. Stefan Huster

mHealth-Services in Health Care – Regulatory and Policy Issues

Mobile health (mHealth) applications represent a prominent and promising, but also particularly controversial aspect of the digitalization of the health care system. Here, health apps and medical apps – especially those used in the public health care system of the statutory health insurance – should be considered primarily with regard to their legal regulatory problems. However, this regulation also raises medical, socio-social, economic and ethical considerations. Three concepts and questions should be in the foreground here:

– Regulation of innovations: How and under which legal requirements do health and medical apps enter the health care system?

– Sanctioning: What legal consequences can and should be linked to the use or non-use of these apps?

– Empowerment vs. solidarity: How will the integration of a mHealth system change the health care system? Will this undermine the solidarity principle?