German e-health card tests "this year":
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Germany's e-health card, due in 2006, will offer the possibility of dispensing with the 700 million prescriptions written annually by doctors. The card's record-holding capabilities will mean wrongly-prescribed treatments can be reduced, while cost savings are estimated at some euro1bn ($1.33bn) per year. So said health minister Ulla Schmidt, who earlier this month was told by the Fraunhofer Institute that the software architecture was ready. Now it can begin development of the equipment, systems and software itself. The finished product will be handed to e-card oversight company gematik for comments and trials. The latter are planned for this year, gematik committee chairman Andreas Kohler said.