Connect, Don't Reject.
ICW solutions make for effective networking in the health care sector.
eCard-Project in Austria
The eCard is the new core element of the Austrian National Health System. Instead of the current health insurance certificate, the eCard will now be the paperless document entitling a patient to medical treatment, the validity of which can now be checked online by any GP.
The eCard System
The eCard system is designed in such a way that the range of currently used functions can be increased without problems in the future. For instance, the eCard is already prepared for a secure signature, which makes it an essential pillar of the planned eGovernment in Austria while ensuring high security standards for online transactions.
In the course of the eCard introduction in Austria, approx. 8 million insured patients and their families were supplied with chip cards. Simultaneously, approx. 12,000 health care providers were connected to the Health Information Network (GIN)1 with the so-called GINA box2 (Health Information Network Adapter) and equipped with chip card reading devices.
The GINA Box
The core element of the Austrian eCard system is the GINA box. This Set Top Box is a mini computer based on a MIPS platform with sufficient RAM and Flash Memory, which renders vulnerable mechanical components like fan or hard disk unnecessary. All necessary decentralised software applications (e.g. eCard application) are installed on this hardware.
The GINA box controls data transfer to the GIN and ensures secure communication with network-based services like the eCard server. The possibilities and functionalities offered by the GINA box meet the standards of the so-called connector of the German electronic health card to a large extent.
Shortly after the beginning of the roll-out, the system proved to function perfectly: According to statistical data of SVC, the chip card provider and operator, 150,000 to 180,000 daily consultations are currently effected via the eCard. In this respect, the availability of the eCard server is currently close to 100 percent. According to SVC statistics, the system has caused only 15 problems, each of which were resolved within two hours.
ICW's Participation
The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) for the eCard project in Austria, which is used as middleware in the GINA box, was delivered, adapted and optimized by InterComponentWare (ICW). In addition, ICW essentially assisted the SVC with the code review. The resulting code optimizations contributed to a significant improvement of the boot and response times, which considerably increased acceptance of the GINA box by practitioners.
