Introduction
Patient education – that is, fully informing patients about planned procedures, risks, alternatives and legal aspects before treatment – is required by law and a central part of medical care. In the German-speaking region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), a diverse market of digital solutions has developed in recent years alongside the established paper-based solutions, aiming to make this consent process more efficient, more comprehensible and more legally sound. This market analysis provides a neutral overview of the main providers of such solutions in the DACH region. It considers both cross-specialty use (for different medical specialties) and inpatient and outpatient settings.
For better understanding, we divide the overview into two main parts:
- Providers with their own patient education content: This part presents companies that create medical patient education content themselves and provide it as digital (or hybrid) solutions. These include providers of digital consent sheets, explanatory videos or interactive patient education apps. Pure software platforms without their own medical content are not included, as the focus is on content providers.
- Hospital information systems and practice management systems (HIS/PMS) with patient education modules: This section looks at which established HIS and PMS manufacturers offer modules for digital patient education. For the sake of transparency, it is important to state which third-party providers the content (texts, forms, videos) in these modules comes from – for example, when a HIS integrates the content library of a specialised provider.
We want to give you a neutral, unranked overview of possible providers to make it easier for you to choose the solution that suits you best.
Providers of patient education solutions (own content)
This section presents leading providers in the DACH region that develop and distribute their own medical content for patient education. This content can come in different formats – from traditional consent sheets (text/PDF) and audiovisual material (explanatory videos, 3D animations) to interactive digital forms or apps. Many solutions combine several formats (hybrid approaches) and offer functions such as electronic signature, integration with hospital IT and multilingual content to overcome language barriers. The following table provides a structured overview of the main providers, their solutions and their features:
| Provider | Solution and content | Medical history and workflow | Special features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Docs in Clouds (tara) | Telemedical platform for anaesthesia patient education and premedication with digital patient education and medical history functions as well as video consultation, with a focus on outpatient and inpatient anaesthesia. – Available languages: German | Digital medical history function in the context of telemedical anaesthesia patient education; no standalone end-to-end workflow | Video service listed by the KBV (National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians), GDPR-compliant, focus on remote patient education and preliminary clarification |
| InformMe | Web-based solution for digital patient education and medical history with text content, audio and video elements and a CMS for your own documents, with a focus on hospitals and practices. – Available languages: German and numerous other languages, including Easy Language (Leichte Sprache) | Medical history module available; structured data capture with system integration (RIS/PMS); no complete workflow layer | Digital signature, structured data, system integration (e.g. RIS/PMS), usage documentation |
| MAIA.tools | Digital patient education with standardised patient education pathways, medical history questionnaires and 3D animation videos, with a focus predominantly on outpatient clinics. – Available languages: German and several other languages | Standardised patient education pathways with medical history questionnaires; workflow at practice level | eIDAS-compliant signature, forensically secure documentation, deep HIS integration |
| medudoc | Complete solution for preoperative patient management: around 300 patient education videos and around 600 IC Sheets (digital informed consent sheets) in more than 22 specialties, produced entirely in-house and medically reviewed at least once a year. All content is compiled individually for each patient based on the procedure, pre-existing conditions and risk profile — personalisation is the standard, not an option. Focus on high-volume procedures in hospitals. – Available languages: patient education content in 23 languages; legally binding consent is given on the German original, and the translation helps patients whose first language is not German to understand it | Complete digital workflow from the patient invitation to the handover to the HIS: structured digital medical history with medical reasoning (adaptive follow-up questions, automated completeness check), validation in the HCP Dashboard with calculated metrics and flagged findings (risk classification remains with the physician), rule-based decision logic for choosing between a telemedical or on-site consent discussion, electronic consent with audit-proof documentation (consent trail), FHIR-based HIS integration. | Medical history reasoning, personalised patient education and consent workflow from a single source. ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified; BSI C5 Type 2 attested. Data processing in Germany, AI processing exclusively in the EU, no third-country transfers. Direct sales to hospitals, hospital groups and tertiary care hospitals; content also available via partners. |
| MIA Video | Library of medical explanatory videos to support patient education along the entire treatment process. The offering is aimed at inpatient and outpatient care. – Available languages: no current information from the provider | Video library without its own medical history or workflow module | Video-centred approach |
| perimed Fachbuch Verlag | According to the provider, legally sound patient information and consent forms on paper and as digital solutions (perimed puls, perimed mobil). The offering is aimed at hospitals, medical practices and multidisciplinary outpatient clinics. – Available languages: German and selected other languages | Form-based; no digital medical history workflow | Long-established provider, digital signature, broad system integration; part of CompuGroup Medical (CGM) since April 2025 |
| synMedico (infoskop) | Multimedia platform for digital patient education with forms, illustrations and videos, especially in dentistry. The offering focuses on dentistry but is increasingly expanding across specialties. – Available languages: German and selected other languages | Tablet-based patient education; no standalone medical history module | Tablet-based patient education, interactive content, deep PMS integration |
| Thieme Compliance | Digital and paper-based patient education based on the Thieme publishing house, with, according to the provider, more than 2,000 consent sheets from more than 30 specialties (E-ConsentPro). The offering is aimed at hospitals and practices. – Available languages: up to 16 languages (as of 2024) | Form-based medical history provides answers for the consent sheet; process integration via HIS partners | High degree of standardisation, continuous updating, broad HIS/PMS and portal integration |
This overview shows the range of offerings: it extends from large medical publishers (e.g. Thieme Compliance, perimed), which traditionally publish only consent sheets, to specialised health tech providers (e.g. InformMe, MIA Video, medudoc), which work with new technologies such as video-based patient education, AI-assisted workflows and complete process integration. Some solutions are specialised (such as tara for anaesthesia patient education or infoskop for dentistry), while others cover almost all disciplines across specialties.
What all the providers presented have in common is that they provide their own medical content, whether in text, image or video form. This distinguishes them from pure software platforms, which digitalise the consent process but do not supply any content of their own. The content of the solutions mentioned is usually created by expert teams of physicians and lawyers and updated regularly to remain medically and legally up to date (for example, according to the provider, Thieme Compliance’s more than 2,000 consent sheets are developed by subject experts and kept medically and legally up to date). Multilingual availability is also an important trend: almost all providers offer translations or use native speakers for voice-overs in other languages to reduce language barriers in the consent process.
Overall, these solutions help to make the consent process more efficient (less paper, automatic documentation), increase patient understanding (visual aids, plain language) and improve legal certainty (digital signatures, logging of every step). The next section looks at how the content of these specialist providers is used in existing hospital and practice software systems.
HIS and PMS with patient education modules
Hospital information systems (HIS) and practice management systems (PMS) form the digital backbone of hospitals and practices. Many of these systems have now integrated modules or interfaces for patient education in order to map the consent process directly in physicians’ familiar workflow. In most cases, HIS/PMS manufacturers do not use content they have created themselves but cooperate with the specialised content providers from section 1. This allows, for example, a publisher’s established consent sheets or a platform’s video content to be used directly in the hospital or practice IT system.
The following table lists some major HIS/PMS providers in the DACH region that offer a patient education module and states who supplies the content components (form texts, videos etc.) in each case:
| HIS/PMS provider (module) – and content partners | Notes on integration |
|---|---|
| CompuGroup Medical AmbulApps module – Uses content from the perimed publishing house (consent sheets). – | In 2024, CGM acquired the specialist provider AmbulApps, whose solution for digital medical history and patient education has since been integrated into the CGM portfolio. Around 500 perimed sheets are available in this module, according to CGM. Since April 2025, the perimed publishing house itself has also been part of CGM. Patients can answer medical history questions and fill in consent sheets at home via a link or in the practice on a tablet. The data are transferred in structured form into the CGM PMS; signatures are made digitally on the tablet. Thanks to the partnership with perimed, practices have many specialty-specific consent sheets directly available without having to create their own content. |
| Dedalus (ORBIS KIS) – Integration of Thieme consent sheets via E-ConsentPro. | Thieme’s patient education forms are fully integrated into Dedalus ORBIS. Originally there was an interface to E-ConsentPro, which, according to Dedalus, around 340 hospitals use; now the integration takes place directly during surgical planning. Physicians can assign suitable patient education documents from the Thieme library to patients directly from ORBIS; after being completed and signed digitally, the documents are archived in an audit-proof way as PDFs in the electronic patient record. |
| medatixx (practice software) – Uses content from Thieme Compliance and medudoc, in each case via partner solutions. | Via HealthHub, the PMS manufacturer medatixx enables external patient education solutions to be connected to its practice software products (e.g. medatixx, x.isynet). This allows practices to integrate Idana or Simpleprax (and therefore also medudoc), for example. Idana Aufklärung Pro integrates the complete Thieme content library – according to the provider, more than 2,000 consent sheets from more than 30 specialties in up to 16 languages – into digital patient education in the practice. Simpleprax also offers digital medical history and patient education forms for the office-based sector; for patient education videos and IC Sheets, Simpleprax uses the medudoc content library. medudoc itself, as the complete solution for preoperative patient management, addresses the hospital sector directly. |
| Nexus AG (HIS / patient portal) – Uses consent sheets from perimed. | Nexus’s HIS solutions (widespread in Germany and Switzerland) integrate patient education content via partners. Nexus cooperates with perimed (consent sheets) – a partnership that allows the perimed mobil solution to be integrated into the Nexus HIS. |
| Simpleprax practice workflows – Uses consent sheets and explanatory videos from medudoc and Thieme Compliance. | Simpleprax connects practice processes such as medical history, data processing, patient education and document management in one continuous process. Simpleprax focuses on office-based medical practices and medical care centres (MVZ) and connects medical history, patient education and document management in one continuous practice workflow. For patient education videos and IC Sheets, Simpleprax draws on the medudoc content library; Thieme Compliance sheets can also be integrated for the office-based sector. medudoc itself, as the complete solution for preoperative patient management, addresses the hospital sector directly. |
| Zollsoft tomedo (PMS) – digital forms – Uses consent sheets from medudoc and Thieme Compliance. | The medical software tomedo enables digital patient education forms to be used directly in the practice workflow. For example, medudoc consent sheets and patient education videos or Thieme sheets can serve as templates; tomedo supports filling in, graphic marking (e.g. drawing sketches) and digitally signing these sheets on a tablet. The completed PDFs are automatically filed in the patient record. |
| Dental PMS (e.g. BDV VISIdent, Evident) – Uses dental consent sheets from synMedico. | In the dental sector, several practice management systems work closely with synMedico. BDV (manufacturer of the VISIdent software), for example, has implemented an integration of infoskop in which patient master data are transferred from VISIdent to the iPad, where the infoskop patient education is carried out. The Evident PMS also cooperates with synMedico (interface for iPad-based patient education). As a result, dentists have the patient education forms and explanatory videos of the infoskop library directly available in everyday practice. After signature, the patient education records flow back into the PMS. These integrations avoid media breaks and ensure uniform, digital documentation. |
| Patient portals (e.g. POLAVIS, Planfox) – Connection of patient education content via interfaces. | When implementing digital patient education, some hospitals rely on third-party patient portals that act as intermediaries between the HIS and the patient. According to the providers, solutions such as POLAVIS or Planfox connect to the HIS. Patient education content can be integrated into such portals – e.g., according to Thieme Compliance, its E-ConsentPro Patient web app is embedded in the patient portal via iFrame. This relieves hospital physicians, as the patient can work through the standardised sheets at home in advance. Here, too, the completed and signed documents are then transferred back to the HIS and archived. In addition, such portals allow further services to be integrated (video consultation, medical history tools etc.) in order to map the entire patient pathway digitally. |
The specialised digital providers often act as white-label partners for the established IT systems: one example is synMedico, whose infoskop platform is offered as an integrated module by several PMS manufacturers in dentistry. Similarly, medudoc’s video-based patient education is integrated into practice software via partners such as Simpleprax and Tomedo.
For hospitals and practices, this approach has the advantage that they can continue to use existing workflows – patient education takes place directly in the familiar system – while still accessing up-to-date content without having to create their own patient education documents. A smooth technical integration (e.g. via HL7/FHIR interfaces or dedicated APIs) is important so that patient data and documentation are synchronised automatically.
In conclusion, digital patient education in the DACH region is shaped by the interplay between content specialists and system providers. While the former provide high-quality, legally sound content, the latter provide the platforms for integrating this content efficiently into everyday clinical practice. This overview is intended as a reference work to give everyone involved in healthcare a transparent impression of the available solutions – and their respective strengths. This allows hospitals and practices to decide, according to their needs, which combination of content and technology is right for their consent processes, whether a video-based system to increase patient understanding or a specialised form tool for maximum legal protection. Presented neutrally and comprehensively, the market analysis provides orientation in a dynamically growing area of healthcare IT.
