Gmünder ErsatzKasse (GEK), a leading German health insurance company, has signeda five year ITO contract with Atos Worldline, an Atos Origin Company to implement and operate the issuing and management of the new German electronic health card (eHC).

In 2009, GEK plans to issue 30,000 cards per day in order to provide its 1.7 million members in Germany with the new card. One of the German public authorities’ most important IT projects, the eHealth card is an important step in the modernisation of European health systems. It is designed to guarantee the simple and secure exchange of data between insured parties, doctors, pharmacists and health insurance companies.

The introduction of the new electronic health card helps to connect together people, pharmacists, doctors, hospitals as well as the private and statutory health insurance companies, and aims at simplifying and accelerating exchanges, thereby doing away with any paperwork.

Atos Worldline has been selected by GEK to implement and operate the issuing and management of eHealth cards. Services include the implementation of the health insurance data, the running of the card application and management system. The solution is based on the Atos Worldline proven card application management system for the electronic health card ‘Worldline eGK KAMS’. Atos Worldline’s integrated solution for the Public Key Infrastructure ensures that patient data is securely stored.

The keys for the electronic health card provided by Atos Origin are approved as trusted services by Gematik (Gesellschaft für Telematikanwendungen der Gesundheitskarte mbH). The solution is modular and covers all safety requirements for the card application management service. The security requirements for key management, card personalisation, online card updates and health insurance agency requests (VSDD) along with card application directory services are supported in accordance with Gematik’s requirements and comply with the instructions from the German Ministry for Health.

“In order to ensure the required security and high availability of the electronic health card system internally, we therefore decided to outsource the service and awarded the contract to Atos Worldline. Their experience in the health administration and proven competence in processing large volume electronic exchanges together with their ‘integration’ and ‘business process outsourcing’ models were key factors in our selection process.” explains Norbert Schurr, Project Leader eHC at GEK.