German private insurers join IBM and TK to offer electronic health records to 17.5M clients on the IBM Cloud

DKV, Generali (Central), Signal-Iduna and Techniker Krankenkasse work with IBM to create Smarter Healthcare for Germany

HANNOVER, Germany, June 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that three of Germany's major private health insurance companies have decided to offer their clients an individual electronic health record based on the system developed by IBM Germany and Techniker Krankenkasse (TK), Germany's largest statutory health insurer.

Like TK, the three major German private health insurance companies, DKV, Generali (Central), and Signal-Iduna, are transforming the way patients access their medical records, using an end-to-end encrypted electronic health record ("eGA") system.  The companies will offer the service to more than 17.5 million full and supplementary insured clients.    

Policyholders will be able to access their medical records – including X-ray images, data from doctors, hospitals, therapists and health insurance companies – using their smartphones. Only the policyholder can decide what data is stored in their account and who can view it, granting full or partial access. They can upload documents directly and choose to store some documents within their apps in offline mode for emergencies.

The electronic health records are encrypted, anonymized and held at the dedicated IBM Europe Cloud data centre in Frankfurt.  The service is designed to comply with current EU security standards and German e-health requirements for data storage.

The more digital data the insured manages in their eGA, the easier it is to apply health services based on that data. "We want to provide our full and supplementary insured customers with a personal digital health manager which help them to manage their health safely, interoperable and across various service providers," explains Dr. Clemens Muth, Member of the Board of DKV Krankenversicherung in the ERGO Group. "The enablement and standardization of digital processes between service providers, insured customers and health insurances in Germany is key to success."

The eGA initially offers service like vaccination recommendations based on digital vaccine data, as well as screening recommendations, emergency data management and medication plan analysis. The next phase of development plans to include capabilities such as digital physician search, online appointment services, digital medical history sheets and digital physician-patient communication services.  Users will also be able to store health information such as data from fitness trackers or electronic diabetes diaries.