ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1624347
This article is part of the Research TopicInsights in Healthcare Professions Education: 2025View all articles
Digital Health Economics Education: Perspectives, Potential and Barriers at German Medical Universities
Provisionally accepted
- 1University Hospital Jena, Jena, Germany
- 2Chair of Health Economics, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany
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Background. The increasing economization of healthcare systems highlights the need to integrate health economics more systematically into medical education.Objective. This study examines the perspectives of deans of German medical faculties on the integration of health economics content into medical studies. It also focuses on determining their ideas about suitable teaching formats and identifying potential obstacles to implementation. A particular and paradoxical finding of the study is the unanimous rejection of digital teaching formats by all participating faculties. Materials and methods. The pilot cross-sectional survey was conducted between April and October 2021. Deans and academic representatives from all 36 medical faculties in Germany were invited to participate. Data was collected using two specially developed standardized questionnaires with 24 questions.The results. A total of 28 medical faculties participated in the survey. 88% of respondents do not currently teach health economics, although 92% consider teaching health economics in medical studies to be important. The main obstacles cited are the lack of recognition as a medical discipline (96%), the absence of a conceptual curriculum (77%) and a lack of teaching capacity and financial resources (77% and 62% respectively). 81% see a conceptual curriculum as a prerequisite for national standardization. 38% call for interdisciplinary cooperation with health economics faculties.
Keywords: Medical Education, Students, Deans, Medical universities, Digital Health Economics Education, Health Economics Education, Health economic
Received: 07 May 2025; Accepted: 10 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hertling, Schöffski, Graul and Schleußner. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Stefan Hertling, University Hospital Jena, Jena, Germany
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