Public health insurer Deutsche Angestellten Krankenkasse (DAK) is the first to be supplied with the patient data cards, equipped with personalized certificates, by Munich smart card specialists Giesecke & Devrient (G&D).

Even now, the cards are ready to be used with any future applications, having passed rigorous security testing by gematik, the company founded by the German government to set up and manage the system infrastructure for the nations electronic health care insurance cards, and TUV-IT, the German Technical Inspection Association for IT security. Furthermore, patients will be allowed to keep the cards once the trials are completed.

"Giesecke & Devrient is the first manufacturer to be delivering a full version of the electronic health care card," emphasizes Hans Wolfgang Kunz, member of the G&D Management Board and Group Executive for Government Solutions. The cards come equipped with all the electronic keys necessary to conduct the transactions that will take place online in the countrys card-based health care system. "The health insurance smart cards being handed out meet every prerequisite for generating, storing, and transmitting medical information electronically," says Kunz, explaining the function of the personal encryption key. The certificates are used to protect applications, for example, the electronic prescription function, found on the card. Whats more: the certificates regulate the rights that authorize access to applications stored on the telematics platform. Only with the aid of and after comparison with the electronic certificates stored on the insurance cards chip can the encrypted medical data stored in the electronic patient file be decoded.

The structure of the certificates on the health care card and in the background system forms the foundation for secure communication within the telematics platform.

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