CeBIT 2005: The electronic healthcare card is coming…

In hall 9 at CeBIT, the first solution architecture for the electronic healthcare card was presented to German Health Minister Ulla Schmidt. This architecture, developed by the Fraunhofer Society on behalf of the joint self-governing body that represents the healthcare industry and the Federal Ministry of Health, describes the specific software roadmap – much like the detailed plans for building a house.

The healthcare card solution from Com, exhibited in both hall 9 and hall 26, dovetails seamlessly with this proposal. Siemens' solution centers around three different smartcards for patients, doctors and healthcare organizations. These chipcards permit access to patient information that is stored on central servers. Like electronic cash cards, the healthcare cards are PIN-protected to guard against abuse and manipulation. In addition, even doctors can only look up certain parts of a patient's record subject to the patient's own explicit consent. In other words, both cards must be read in and both PINs entered before access is granted.

Central data storage prevents unnecessary duplicate examinations and ensures that all doctors involved in treating a patient have up-to-date information at their fingertips. Similarly, prescriptions are no longer printed out but are instead stored on a central system. Pharmacists will in turn use their chipcards to access these prescriptions and hand out the corresponding medication.

A whole spectrum of smart add-on applications can also be run on the same underlying network infrastructure, all of which can sharply improve the quality of medical treatment. Examples include solutions that check prescriptions for contra-indications, and posting systems that automatically schedule operations or rehabilitation, for instance.

"The launch of the electronic healthcare card will trigger a far-reaching revolution that improves the quality of healthcare, makes it more economical and more transparent, and cuts out a lot of the red tape," said Schmidt. "Starting in 2006, the electronic patient record will gradually replace the health insurance card we know today. The healthcare card is the first application that has the technical capabilities to cope with the 700 million or so prescriptions made out every year. Electronic prescriptions also allow medication to be documented – a voluntary option for patients that can drastically reduce undesirable side-effects as a result of medical treatment. This documentation and the practice of creating prescriptions electronically alone will inject greater certainty into medical treatment and will generate savings of over a billion euros – both of which will benefit the patients."