The Performance of Health Care Services Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Digital Health Transformation – A Health Economic Analysis

Abstract

This health economic doctoral thesis aims to employ a selected set of empirical methods to both investigate the current challenges in the German healthcare system in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and to evaluate the use of digital health applications to sustainably improve the medical care for patients. To achieve these objectives, the dissertation comprises in total five published scientific papers, each contributing valuable insights to the field of health economic research. The initial two papers address challenges posed to the German healthcare system by the COVID-19 pandemic, while the subsequent three papers focus on the digitization of healthcare.