Medicine
Digital Health: Expert Summit demands 10-point plan on digital health
Brandenburg/Havel, 30 August 2024
The Brandenburg university hospital UKB was the leading host of the 2nd Digital Health Summit in Brandenburg/Havel last Thursday and Friday, with more than 100 medical researchers from 20 German university hospitals. This year’s focus at the interdisciplinary consensus meetings was on four areas: AI, telemedicine, Augmented/Virtual/Mixed Reality and health-related apps.
Brandenburg’s Health Minister Ursula Nonnemacher assumed the patronage of the event where researchers presented findings and visions on Digital Health. She was pleased to note the pioneering role of Brandenburg in digitization and identification of digital options for the benefit of Brandenburg and beyond: “Digital transformation based on artificial intelligence will have a decisive impact on future healthcare. AI-based systems are already capable of analyzing huge amounts of medical data, which results in faster diagnoses and early recognition of illness. California has opened a first AI-based medical center, so why shouldn’t Brandenburg follow suit with a comparable institution?”
Enormous potential in digitization of German health system
Prof. Hendrik Borgmann, director of the UKB urology clinic, co-chaired the meeting, which he celebrated as a successful world debut, together with senior physician Dr. Julian Struck. He points to the enormous potential of digitization for the national health system: “A recent McKinsey study speaks of 42 billion Euro that might be saved in this manner per year, to be profitably invested elsewhere for the benefit of patients. In view of demographic change and the shortage of health professionals, this appears to be the only way to optimize healthcare for the population in Germany.”
Attending experts and researchers had discussed and analyzed available specialist literature on digital health. In conclusion, the expert consensus presented a 10-point plan with demands on policy makers.
The 10-point plan on digital health has the following demands on policy makers in Germany for a successful digitization of the health system:
1. Definition of clear responsibilities: It is a medical necessity to ensure that the responsibility for diagnostics, diagnosis and therapy including the use of AI-based systems always remains with the attending physicians.
2. Promotion of interdisciplinary collaboration: Digital health solutions should generally be conceived and developed in interdisciplinary collaboration. This includes care providers, medical technology and pharmaceuticals industry, digital media presence, patient representatives and experts in ethics and law.
3. Extension of training and further education programs: Structured training and further education to improve competences of medical staff in the handling of digital health solutions should be promoted to increase the acceptance and application of such solutions.
4. Funding and reimbursement for digital health solutions:Evidence-based digital health solutions (from the fields of AI, telemedicine, Extended Realities, health apps) need to be financed and be assigned precise rates according to medical fee schedules (EBM, GOÄ etc.).
5. Integration of health apps for comprehensive health promotion:Health apps should be used not only in the treatment of diseases and/or their symptoms but also for prevention, early diagnosis and general encouragement of health-enhancing behavior.
6. Funding programs and invitations of tender to support digital health solutions: To establish digital health solutions, precisely defined funding programs and invitations of tender are required for purposes of development, integration and evaluation in the context of clinical studies and preclinical research.
7. Application of telemedicine to avoid supply shortages:In view of imminent supply shortages in the German health system, the use of synchronous and asynchronous telemedical concepts is imperative to complement and advance established treatment strategies.
8. Management of legal and structural challenges:The administrative structures of the federal system pose a complex legal and political challenge for the nationwide clinical employment of AI-based assistance systems. Specifically, this concerns the implementation of data protection stipulations, information security and the still very heterogenous digitization standards.
9. Creation of structural conditions for clinical applications of AI: Despite rapid advances in the scientific development of AI models and extended fields of application, current conditions in Germany and all over Europe still do not offer essential structural requirements (of a technical, organizational, economic and regulatory nature) for clinical application, and there are barriers to acceptance and pertinent training.
10. Future potential of AI systems in therapy optimization: In future, AI systems might produce personalized and precise therapy recommendations and thus considerably improve treatment outcomes.
Regardless of the 10-point plan and its implementation, attending researchers are convinced that the future in medicine is digital!
Scientific contact:
Univ.-Prof. Dr. med. Hendrik Borgmann / Dr. med. Julian Struck
Universitätsklinikum Brandenburg an der Havel
Phone: 03381 411850
E-Mail: hendrik.borgmann@uk-brandenburg.de
