Health care professionals protocol for secure online transmission of patient data

One of the results of the 49(th) Bavarian Physician's Conference was that i n 1996 the Bavarian Statutory Health Care Administration (Kassenarztliche V ereinigung Bayerns, KVB) and the Bavarian Medical Association (Bayerische L andesarztekammer, BLAK) jointly suggested a project for the development and verification of a security infrastructure for the online transmission of m edical patient data. This Project, the so-called "Health Care Professionals Protocol" (HCP-Protokoll), was designed to establish the first consensus s tandard for a secure and provably open system to be used in the health care system operating under the constraints of the diverse and heterogeneous IT -infrastructure in Bavaria, with a view towards utilization in all of Germa ny. In January 1997, the HCP-Protocol was accepted as the strategic mainline pr oject for telematics applications in medicine by the State of Bavaria and e ndowed with more than 1.3 million DM in the framework of "Bavaria Online II ". In the meantime, various national organizations of the German medical commu nity as well as important industrial partners have expressed support for th is initiative. Mention in the Roland-Berger study "Telematics in Hearth Car e, Perspectives of Telemedicine in Germany", designation as an "exemplary s cenario" in the final report of the Working Group 7 of the Forum Info 2000 "Telematics Applications in Health Care", as well as integration of the new German health professional card, make the HCP-Protocol the most promising candidate for a tie facto standard in the security infrastructure for all p articipants in health care telecommunication in Germany. Since the middle of 1998, an expert group under the guidance of the joint " Projektburo Telemedizin" of the KVB and BLAK has been working on the defini tion of this protocol, taking into consideration the current legal framewor k of the German medical profession (Berufsordnung), the German signature la w (SigG), and the national data security laws (BDSG), as well as today's te chnical possibilities and existing components. The results of this definition will be published at the first opportunity ( sometime during the first half of 1999) and then placed into public domain, so that any solution provider can reference this source to create secure a nd mutually interoperable application programs for health care professional s in Germany.