Henrik Emmert
Digital Health Applications (DiGA) – A German Success Story?
In 2019, Germany became the first country to prescribe apps like medicine—and laid the foundation for a new category of digital healthcare. While other countries now follow suit, the DiGA model is still evolving—between policy, pricing, and the promise of scalable, patient-centered innovation.
DiGA applications are a global benchmark—but their success in Germany will depend on smart reform, commercial maturity, and the system’s ability to balance innovation with regulation.
When Germany added DiGA—Digitale Gesundheitsanwendungen—to the statutory benefits catalog, it signaled more than regulatory progress. It introduced the idea that digital health interventions could become part of routine care, prescribed and reimbursed like any drug. Since then, over a million activations have been recorded, and other nations have adopted the model. But real success is still in the making. From complex access pathways and pricing tensions to regulatory friction and commercial growing pains, DiGA developers are navigating a system that wants innovation—but often struggles to handle it. What’s emerging is a fascinating case study in how digital health becomes mainstream: not by bypassing bureaucracy, but by reshaping it from within.
When Healthcare Goes App-Based:
Rethinking the Prescription Paradigm
What you’ll learn
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How leadership styles have evolved from the 1940s to the AI-driven 2020s
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Why today’s HealthTech leaders are radically different from traditional executives
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What behavioral data reveals about their innovation capacity—and risk profiles
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How traits like autonomy and unpredictability become both strengths and liabilities
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Why execution, structure, and self-awareness are critical to scaling bold vision
Henrik Emmert is Managing Director of the digital health companies Sidekick Health Germany and PINK gegen Brustkrebs. The products “PINK!Coach,” a digital assistant to improve the care of breast cancer patients, and “zanadio,” a digital obesity therapy, have been approved by the BfArM as digital health applications (DiGA) and permanently included in the list of prescribable products. Henrik also acts as board member for the leading industry association for DiGA in Germany (SVDGV). Previously, the industrial engineer advised international companies in the healthcare sector as a principal at the Boston Consulting Group.
About the Author
Henrik Emmert
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