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TC TrustCenter provides certificates for Germany's first electronic health professional card
Sachsen launches pilot project to advance health professional cards for physicians
For the first time, 620 hospital physicians in Sachsen are provided with a chipcard containing a digital TC TrustCenter certificate. It is the first step towards the health professional card (HPC) and allows doctors to store and retrieve patient data such as radiological diagnostic findings. Sachsen's pilot project is considered a strategically significant entry into the future of electronic communication within the health care community.
The health professional card and, upon further expansion, the patient health card will significantly simplify communication among physicians and between doctors and patients. In Sachsen, the digital health professional card was distributed in the radiology departments of the five hospitals participating in the pilot project called "SaxTelemed." The issuance of these cards represents the first step towards a more secure digital doctor-patient communication.
It is expected that the quality of medical care as well as patient satisfaction will further improve with applications such as e-prescriptions, electronic doctor's letters, electronic patient files, and exact Europe-wide medication documentation preventing multiple medication. In addition, the digital processes enabled by the HPC help to minimize administrative costs for doctors, hospitals, and health insurance companies. The crucial advantage of the HPC in handling sensitive data is that it requires doctors to identify and authenticate themselves before they are allowed to access digitalized information, encrypt data, or provide electronic signatures. The digital certificates on the HPC contain information on the doctor's identity and thus abide to the high security demands of legally prescribed data protection guidelines.
Smartcards are provided by Giesecke & Devrient. TC TrustCenter personalizes each card and equips it with three digital certificates. These certificates allow doctors to identify themselves to the system, encrypt imported patient information, and sign them with an electronic signature in accordance with the Signature Act. This ensures that only authorized personnel can retrieve information or import new data. Within the pilot project "Sax Telemed," the issuance of health professional cards is administered by the medical association Sachsen (Sächsische Landesärztekammer).
In order to keep the processes within the pilot project as practical as possible, the participating hospitals take on the task of identifying and registering physicians who have applied for a HPC. This eliminates additional organizational tasks for doctors. For the projected general solution, especially for self-employed physicians and smaller institutions, other identification and registration procedures are planned (e.g. through medical associations). Since the HPC also contains a picture of its holder, it is meant to eventually replace the paper-based ID.
After the successful completion of the pilot project, hospital employees and patients will be issued chipcards to digitally administer all relevant information such as medical diagnostic results, documentations, and prescriptions while ensuring the highest-possible degree of trustworthiness. 26.04.2004, TC TrustCenter AG
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