Government, health insurers and medical practitioner representatives in the German state of Nordrhein-Westfalen have agreed to press ahead with the provision of electronic health cards. But the move remains controversial.

The North Rhine region is to be the first in Germany to distribute eHealth cards, following an agreement between the state government and federations representing health insurance funds, doctors, dentists and hospitals. They approved the card scheme during a meeting at the state’s health ministry. However, the ICT news service Heise Online says the roll-out will not be possible before 2009, as the distribution of card-reading terminals will not begin until the last quarter of 2008 at the earliest.

Welcoming the agreement, the state’s health minister said the move would strengthen the “pioneering role of Nordrhein-Westfalen in introducing telematics applications into the health services”. But in what Heise Online termed a “rather hazy formulation”, the federations said they will create the organisational preconditions for launching the project as soon as the technical preconditions have been fulfilled.

According to the news service, the arrival of the terminals will have to be followed by quality tests before the funds can start distributing the cards. Acceptance of the cards by the public and medical practitioners is another fraught issue. For the first time, a regional dentists’ federation has joined the “Stop the eCard” campaign.

Further information:

• heise online – News article (in German)