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Linux and other free Open Source software is the base of the IT infrastructure of the new Austrian health insurance card system. Eleven other countries might follow the Austrian example.
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Linux and other free Open Source software is the base of the IT infrastructure of the new Austrian health insurance card system.
Every doctor s practice (some 10,700) is now equipped with a little multifunctional device called GINA, which is in fact a full blown Linux based computer, including VGA connection, USB ports and LAN access to the card readers. The main scope of the device is to connect the practices to the public health information network which checks for example the validity of the health insurance card. Even practices without an existing PC infrastructure can be connected very inexpensively to the public health insurance network.
The health insurance card (called “e-card”) can also be used as a “citizen card” for electronic signatures etc. Main reasons for choosing Linux to power the infrastructre in the doctor s practices have therefore been reliability, security concerns, costs, openess (use of publicly standardized interfaces) and vendor independency, according to the official System Overview (German language).
Eleven other countries are interested in introducing the inexpensive, highly reliable system, according to the e-card website (mostly German language).
Some information are also available in English language here, the sourcecode and licence information (GPL) can be found here.
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