German insurer GEK ready for e-health card launch
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Gmünder ErsatzKasse (GEK), Germany's fifth-largest insurance company, has signed a five-year contract with Atos Worldline to issue and manage the electronic health card that is being introduced nationally. GEK aims to provide the card to its 1.7 million members in 2009, at a rate of 30,000 cards per day. Germany's e-health card programme, overseen by the quality assurance body Gematik, is described by Atos as an "important step in the modernisation of European health systems". Atos Worldline is part of Paris, France-based IT services group Atos Origin, which in October moved to strengthen its operations in Germany and central Europe (see Clinica No 1326, p 12).