Digital Health Innovation Forum: Transatlantic exchange for more innovation

With an international conference, the "Digital Health Innovation Forum", the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) wants to promote the exchange between research in the digital health sector, politics and companies. Lothar Wieler, head of the "Digital Global Public Health" department at HPI and former president of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), still sees a lot of room for improvement in the areas of prevention and robotics and in the use of large AI language models.

"What we need is an interdisciplinary exchange at the top between research, politics and business in order to develop framework conditions that adapt to today's rapidly changing landscape and evolve with it," says Ariel Dora Stern, Head of the "Digital Health, Economics and Policy" department at HPI. It is important to her that regulation does not prevent innovation.

Cuts for US scientists

"Transatlantic exchange has never been as important as it is today. Especially now, we need to expand our scientific networks in the USA and signal to researchers that we welcome them here with open arms", said Stern against the backdrop of the announced cuts to US universities under US President Donald Trump. "Our colleagues and partners in leading university hospitals in the USA are also experiencing these restrictions –, which is why we must continue to support scientists in the USA", added Wieler.

The forum will also focus on learning from the US experience since the HITECH Act of 2009. The aim was to introduce electronic health records in order to improve the healthcare system. For example, doctors need incentives to use the software. According to Melinda Buntin, Professor at the Johns Hopkis University School of Public Health, it is helpful if the systems are user-friendly and easy to integrate into the work processes of hospital staff.

This is still a problem, as is the lack of interoperability and competitive thinking among software providers. In the US, "all the top hospital systems in the US basically use the same vendor for electronic health records", said Buntin. In the US, as in Germany, it is difficult to change software providers. She recommends maintaining competition.

Data leak at Change Healthcare a setback

According to Buntin, there should be major improvements in the area of data protection and cybersecurity. This requires better and more uniform legislation. "We are at a point where we are incredibly frustrated when it comes to protecting privacy", says Buntin, who, along with her family, is also affected by the massive data leak from US payment service provider Change Healthcare.

A total of 190 million people were affected by the ransomware incident and its consequences. The cause at the time was the lack of two-factor authentication on a server following the acquisition of Change Healthcare by UnitedHealth. According to Buntin, the goal of facilitating the exchange of information was "not really achieved". She also recently had to drive a CD with X-ray images around.

(mack)