While arteriosclerosis is asymptomatic until complications occur, the secondary conditions it causes (stroke or heart attack) are the most common cause of premature death in industrialized countries.
CLINOTEL is a group of more than 60 hospitals (institution codes, as of 2018). Its members want to ensure their lasting economic success and provide their services in accordance with current medical knowledge and best practices.
North Rhine-Westphalia provides services for 4.6 million inpatients and 5 million outpatients at a total of 344 hospitals. Measuring the direct influence of digitization appears difficult. Digitally assisted communication establishes consistency, both in the hospital and with external supporting structures.
The activities of nursing staff in German hospitals not only demand a high level of technical expertise, but also extensive, individual interaction with patients. To ensure individual care of high quality, the patient’s personality traits and feelings need to be taken into account in addition to expertise.
Data are considered the raw material of the century. The World Economic Forum designated personal data as a new asset class back in 2012. A shift to digital business models on the basis of data is in demand and already discernible today. The project "DaWID" aims to research and test a data-centered value creation platform for the transparent and sovereign administration of their own data by users.
The digital life journey describes us from our birth to our death. This leads to the following question: Would it be possible to describe the individual citizen in their entirety by combining all their data – the "digital me" so to speak? This digital life journey shows how each person can regain sovereignty over their data, and how society, technology, ethics, law, and economics have to work together.
In the project "eDEM-Connect", we are researching how people caring for family members suffering from dementia, who are confronted with agitation, can be supported by technical solutions. The three-year project aims to establish and deliver a chatbot-based communication and service platform.
Epilepsy is among the most common neurological diseases in the world. Recurring epileptic seizures that put great strain on affected individuals and the people who care for them are a typical symptom. The unpredictability of the seizures as well as impaired consciousness and the loss of control over various bodily functions contribute to the risk that affected individuals may sustain serious injuries, making care more difficult.
Timely access to safe drug products is a key issue for clinical medicine. Here the risk-based evaluation of the quality, safety, and effectiveness of these drugs plays a major role.
The goal of the project "I/E-Health-NRW" is to test and establish the existing standardized technological methods in model regions in North Rhine-Westphalia under consideration of the German Digital Healthcare Act and support for migration to the telematics infrastructure. This will allow registered doctors and hospitals to exchange patient data using the electronic case file and KV-Connect data.
Today the health data of EU citizens are distributed across various IT systems in different healthcare organizations. Notwithstanding the growing number of central-ized infrastructures on the basis of digital health files, the adequate exchange of data is hardly possible within the framework of regional, national, and in particular cross-border healthcare in the EU states (continuity of care).
This project uses an experimentation space called Health Reality Labs and the Health Reality Platform to create a real and digital environment, intended to promote exchanges between the creative industry and healthcare sector in the area of mixed reality applications. Best practices and design principles for the practical implementation of augmented reality/virtual reality applications are researched and quality criteria are established.
Scientific institutions based in Dortmund that – on their own – are already shaping and driving logistics research today are working together under the umbrella of the High Performance Center Logistics and IT. In the High Performance Center, they are now establishing a national infrastructure and innovation ecosystem in cooperation with industry, not only together but also synergetically – from fundamental research to applied research.
Infantile cerebral palsy (ICP), a chronic disease of the musculoskeletal system, leads to motor impairment due to damage to the central nervous system in early childhood. The aim of this project is to develop a technology that grows with the child and increases motivation to support the training of children and adolescents with ICP.
Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases worldwide. Its characteristic symptom is recurrent epileptic seizures, which are very stressful for those affected. Recognizing and documenting epileptic seizures in everyday life is essential for individual therapy.
Ten percent of the world’s population is affected by chronic kidney disease (CKD). Figures in the European Union range from three to 17 percent, corresponding to a prevalence similar to that of diabetes mellitus.
Changes in the regulation of vegetative bodily functions and sleep frequently occur even before Parkinson’s patients experience movement disorders. However, a broadly available screening and monitoring system for corresponding early diagnosis does not exist at this time.
Care and research in relation to pandemics requires the availability of medical care data in retrospective, acute and prospective terms. A longitudinal view of disease progression requires a) complex legal constructs (ethics, purpose), but in particular the consent of patients, and b) access points to data-gathering endpoints in care and research.
Barmherzigen Brüder Trier (BBT) has launched an innovation process to meet future nursing needs from the perspective of demographics and the trend of an increasingly more digitized society. Realizing supportive, consistent, and cooperative processes using digital possibilities is a key objective.
The societal and now also legal claim (see Federal Participation Act) to realize social participation of children and young people with various forms of disabilities is firmly anchored on the one hand, but on the other hand, implementation is still seriously hampered in most places. In addition to urgently needed conceptual, organizational and personnel adjustments, the potential for robotic assistance systems in this area is far from exhausted. Their use offers special opportunities, especially for the target group of children and young people, because their unprejudiced attitude toward and ability to learn with technical assistance systems is particularly pronounced. The intensified, self-determined and everyday use of such assistance robotics therefore offers good opportunities to improve participation and also quality of care under given health economic conditions.
The demand for efficient development of new treatment methods, pharmaceuticals and technologies in medicine is greater than ever. Data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence are opening up new opportunities for medical research based on healthcare data.
In the project "ViCon - Virtual Consent Assistant", Fraunhofer ISST is researching new human-technology dialogs. In this context, a virtual Consent Assistant is to support informed consents for the processing of patient-related data. Often, the informedness of patients is simply assumed.
Pandemics require digital solutions to maintain health care structures and at the same time improve health research. With the Electronic Case File (EFA), the Fraunhofer ISST has already provided a central building block for ensuring and improving the care of COVID-19 patients (Technology Readiness Levels (TRL): 9).
Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering
