German Heal Insurance Launches Digital Platform with Cisco

AOK Nordost and Cisco to develop a digital platform for healthcare insurance customers in Germany

Overview of personal health data

Networking to facilitate prevention and treatments

Berlin, April 20, 2016 - The German health insurance company AOK Nordost plans to develop a digital healthcare platform together with IT company Cisco. In the future, 1.75 million AOK Nordost customers will be able to access their health information as safely, transparently and easily as they access their finances using online banking. As a result, the insured will be able to obtain a better overview of upcoming checkups and vaccinations, past treatments and medical test results. The chronically ill will be able to to exchange views with one another via the platform, similar to a secure online chat, and at the same time, exchange medical data in a highly secure environment with other patients.

AOK Nordost considers this digital platform to be an additional opt-in service for the insured. AOK Nordost and Cisco emphasize that data security and privacy for this project are key. Professor Dirk Heckmann from Passau University, Professor of Internet Law, advises on the design and implementation of the platform to help ensure it follows legal compliance.

Sharing data securely and using them in a meaningful way will become the key factor in healthcare, says Frank Michalak, CEO of AOK Nordost. We want to offer new digital services for the people we insure. This is why we decided to build this platform together with Cisco. The project is part of our overall digital strategy: How can digitization help to make our policyholders healthier.

Cisco is driving digitization forward in all areas because we are convinced that everyone will benefit greatly from it, says Oliver Tuszik, head of Cisco Germany. The potential for changing people's lives for the better is significant, particularly in healthcare. Together we can make it much easier for people to stay or get healthy.

For Cisco, the cooperation with AOK Nordost is part of the Deutschland Digital initiative. Under this project, Cisco will be investing $500 million in the digitization of Germany within three years. Projects in the areas of innovation, IT security and education are to be accelerated with the help of these investments.

A consortium headed by Cisco will begin building this platform for AOK Nordost in April 2016. Other members of the consortium include xevIT, Healthcubator, Tiani Spirit and ehealthbusiness. Initial functions for the insured are expected to be available later this year.

From a technical standpoint, the platform will be based on the IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise) standard. IHE has already laid the foundation for electronic patient records in Austria, Switzerland and parts of the United States.

About AOK Nordost

With 1.75M cutomers, AOK Nordost is the biggest health insurance company in the north east of Germany, a region including the capital of Berlin and two federal states. AOK Nordost is a leader in digital healthcare: In 2016, AOK Nordost launched its all-digital bonus program.

About Cisco

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