Carestream Health has become one of the first healthcare IT companies to receive the KBV certificate, eGK-Release-0, as part of the initial rollout of the electronic health smartcard in Germany.

The Federal National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians awarded the certificate for the Care Radiology Information System (RIS) software.

The certification provides confirmation that the software is compliant with the overall programme specification and fulfils all requirements for the secure handling of patient insurance data.

Germany’s e-health card programme is one of the largest IT projects worldwide with a planned deployment of more than 80m electronic health insurance cards.

The new electronic healthcare card (eGK) is set to replace the existing health insurance card (KVK), currently issued by the German Federal Government.

In addition to the new healthcare card, service providers will require new card readers and eventually a connection to an online medical network. Initially the cards will be used with card readers for health insurance details invoicing.

Wolfgang Menrad, managing director for Carestream Health in Germany, said in a statement: “This early certification of our Carestream RIS software highlights our commitment to giving our customers the highest possible level of application security when they use our products and systems within their IT environment.”