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Healthcare IT

User resistance to German e-health cards

By Jianggan Li | 11 August 2009

The cards are expected to be used initially in identifying patients and improving the processing of health insurance claims.

The insurance companies say that they are ready for the cards, whose beta versions have recently met national security and privacy regulations for a nationwide rollout. However, the 80 million policy holders will not be able to have their cards issued unless doctors and pharmacists install necessary equipments to read the cards.

So far, they have refused to purchase such systems, saying that the paper process works better and faster for them.

There is no federal government mandate for installation of the equipments, developed under a joint programme by the health ministry and the public health insurance companies.

The concern, as voiced by many health IT professionals, is that busy clinicians and pharmacists would not want to change their workflow for a new system which might run into technical problems. This is despite the fact that many working in the field acknowledge the security and privacy benefits of such a card system.

While many hospitals in the country are currently in the midst of rolling out EMR, says Martin Peuker, Deputy CIO of Berlin’s Charite Hospital, the government’s push to roll out nationwide e-health cards may mean ‘too much technology too fast’.

“Every day, we have this discussion,” Peuker recalls the refining of his hospital’s EMR implementation, which has been ongoing for several years. “They say, it would be so much faster to do it all on paper.” The new card, with the user’s photo and basic health information such as prescription data stored electronically, will replace the country’s existing health insurance card. More medical data is planned to be added in the future.

The old card only displays the name, date of birth and insurance company of the holder.

The health ministry says it is still confident that the cards can be rolled out by the end of this year, as planned.

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