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Martin Bever, Georg Hartmann, Claus Schottmüller
The Integrated Medical Record- A new Dimension in the German Health Care System
Medical communication, i.e. the exchange of medical patient data, contributes to more efficiency in medical treatment and helps to avoid double examinations. Due to a large number of medical institutions in the German health care system, patient data is stored in multiple independent and geographically dispersed databases. Although today there is a trend to migrate to electronic patient records using medical IT-solutions, the access to remote patient data in general still fails. Reasons for this are the lack of an appropriate communication infrastructure between the medical institutions and the missing of an organisational and legal framework for the exchange of medical data across networks. One step towards an integrated electronical medical rcord and its availability in medical treatment is to store medical data on a patient card, comprising admin data, emergency data, and a relevant part of the patient´s medical history. The capacity of current chip cards is restricted to a few Kbytes, however the emerging hybrid card technology overcomes this limitation. Enhancing chip cards by an optical layer on the back, they provide sufficient capacity to store large volumes of text and image information, e.g. X-ray pictures. The security functions of chip technology guarantee privacy and a secure exchange of patient data. In addition to that network addresses can be stored on the card which point to further medical data of the patient. Applying access control and encoding functions of the patient card a secure exchange of medical data across communication networks can be achieved.
it – Information Technology (vormals it+ti), Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag
Print ISSN: 1611-2776
Volume: 40, 02/1998
Pages: 44