IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

Yesterday, the German Health Minister announced eight test regions for the initial introduction of the electronic health card. Some 10,000 users across Germany will participate in a field test that will start by the end of April. In the second half of this year, the trial should be extended to cover 100,000 users.

When we last wrote about pending German e-government projects (see EuroView Daily, 7 December 2005), the "Gesundheitskarte", or electronic health card, was high on the list of projects we hoped would be tackled soon by the new government. Now we are entering the test phase!

The electronic health card project is a major undertaking, and has the potential to be the cornerstone of a modernised health system. It aims to improve the communication between all parties involved in the healthcare sector: 80m insurants, 123,000 general practitioners, 2,200 hospitals, 65,000 dentists, 21,000 pharmacies and 270 health insurance companies. It seems a colossal task to establish a functioning and safe communications network between those groups. Bitkom, the German IT and telecommunications trade association, reckons that the project requires an upfront investment of approximately €1.4bn, and is expected to result in enormous cost savings in the health sector.

Initially, the card will replace the existing health insurance card, which shows the name and date of birth of the insurant, and the name of their insurance company. As well as a digital photo of the insurant, the electronic version will contain additional administrative information such as electronic prescriptions. These functionalities will be introduced in stages. In addition, optional medical information such as a record of prescribed drugs as well as emergency data can be stored if requested by the individual.

The project required changes in the legal framework as well as the creation of organisational and technical models. The technical aspects of the electronic data transmission were defined by an industry consortium composed of IBM Germany, chip-card manufacturer ORGA and SAP, amongst others. Gematik mbH, founded last January in Berlin, is responsible for the actual implementation and running of the project.

Many questions still need to be answered: who will actually pay for the trials? Are the involved parties ready for it? What is the timeframe for the entire project? But at least things are moving! I'm sure we will report more on its progress during this year.

Autor: Cornelia Wels-Maug

Quelle: Ovum, 04.10.2006