The eHealth specialist InterComponentWare AG (ICW) was chosen as technology partner, which is providing the web-based personal health record LifeSensor for the three-year research study. BARMER, Germany's largest health insurance provider, starts evaluating the effects of the personal health record on the health behavior and the situation for the provision of health care to its insured as part of a Germany-wide research study. A research working group led by Dr. med. Hanna Kirchner is responsible for the design and execution of the project.
With the LifeSensor personal health record, BARMER is offering all its insured an innovative instrument that enables them to actively manage and control their health themselves. BARMER customers can thus access information relevant to their health online at any time. They will thus profit much sooner from new applications, which otherwise would not be available until after the official deployment of the electronic health card.
For BARMER, data privacy and security are top priority in the research study: The health insurance provider will not have any access to the health records of the insured. The insured alone determine who has access to their health data. Physicians, pharmacists, clinics, and other providers of health services can not access the information in the file or add to the medical information until the user grants access. In this way, treatment can be adapted optimally to the health status of the insured. Furthermore, the insured can utilize special BARMER consulting and health care offerings, such as the health telephone, from directly within their personal health record. That facilitates optimum customer care as well as more purposefully designed individual health care. Starting in the fall of 2007, the personal health record is expected to be available to all interested BARMER insured.
Birgit Fischer, deputy chairperson of the managing board at BARMER about the research study: "The insured themselves can best evaluate the advantages and benefits of an personal health record and provide tips for its practical use. BARMER wants to expand what has until now been mostly a technical discussion to include questions of application from the perspective of insured and patients and to offer the BARMER insured an opportunity to participate."
The chairman of the ICW managing board, Peter Reuschel, adds: "We are pleased that we have this opportunity to provide the health record technology for a research study of this scope. Over seven million BARMER insured then have an opportunity to take advantage of the benefits of a personal health record. The web-based BARMER personal health record based on our LifeSensor technology is finally bringing the right of informational self-determination within the reach of insured and patients."
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- InterComponentWare AG (ICW)'s Profile
About InterComponentWare
InterComponentWare AG (ICW) is a leading international eHealth specialist with locations in Germany, the United States, Austria, Switzerland and Bulgaria. Its solutions for networking the various players in the healthcare system lastingly improve process-oriented communication and data integrity, and therefore also the quality of healthcare. Among other things, ICW develops and distributes software and hardware components for the healthcare IT infrastructure for electronic health cards, the LifeSensor personal health record as well as networking solutions for hospitals and physician offices. As part of the bIT4health consortium, ICW provided important consulting services for the implementation of the electronic health card in Germany, is involved in the Austrian eCard project and has won the pilot project for the national health card in Bulgaria. For further information, please visit www.icw-global.com.