Digital solutions from apps to surgical robots at the eHealth Symposium Southwest 2020

Where is digital medicine heading? What innovative ideas and developments are currently available? It is clear that artificial intelligence, big data and precision medicine are also playing a decisive role in healthcare in the digital age.

The eHealth Symposium 2020 therefore addressed the question of how the healthcare system can benefit from digitalization. More than 150 regional representatives from medicine, research, business and politics used the format on January 29 to discuss the rapid developments in the field of eHealth and to network with each other.

Welcome by the organizers Dr. Stefan Weiler/bic, Andreas Klüter/Empolis, Peter Förster/Westpfalz-Klinikum, Stefan Kohl/5-HT Digital Hub (from left to right)

Nowadays, stress and chronic illnesses are spreading at an ever-increasing rate, which is why innovative approaches are needed. For example, the "Stress Monitor" apps from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern were presented by co-developer Dr. Corinna Faust-Christmann, in which proven stress management methods are used in a playful way and the mythical creature Elwetritsch goes through exercises.

Dr. Corinna Faust-Christmann

Anna Lenz from Pathmate also presented her Digital Health Coach, an appealing and science-based app for chronic diseases such as heart disease, which is to be extended to other diseases such as diabetes or sleep disorders in the future.

Anna Lenz from Pathmate

Andrea Schuff from Kubicum presented Quali.de, a platform that enables healthcare facilities to conveniently and clearly manage the qualifications of their own employees. The services for hospitals also include meine-meldung.de, an anonymous reporting system for critical incidents, complaints and ideas.

Andrea Schuff from Kubicum

Achim Kohli from the Bern-based company legal-i showed how medical insurance law can be further developed with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). Legal-i extracts a unique DNA from every case and every document. With this DNA, legal-i then finds similar documents and cases with similar DNA in the archives of insurance companies and law firms in seconds. "AI is incredibly strong at recognizing patterns in data. And we are strong at analyzing the data," said Kohli. The aim is to network the existing knowledge.

Achim Kohli from legal-i

The Westpfalz-Klinikum is also taking advantage of the possibilities of digitalization. The DaVinci Xi® Multiport surgical robot has been in use there for a year and enables minimally invasive, millimetre-precise surgery. The surgeon controls the telemanipulator from a console using controllers and foot pedals. They can keep an eye on the progress of the operation at all times via a screen. "The DaVinci Xi® Multiport is the best the market currently has to offer," said Priv.-Doz. Dr. med. Dr. med. habil. Christian Mönch, Chief Physician of the Clinic for General, Visceral and Transplantation Medicine and Medical Director. "Nevertheless, there will always be someone sitting at the console and controlling the robot." In addition to the presentation of the surgical robot, the program also included lectures on the digital possibilities of influencing emotions and patient-specific therapy planning using a 3D model of brain aneurysms.

"We were co-organizers for the first time. I was very pleased with all the positive feedback. It's great that we were able to further strengthen the event with start-ups and our network," says Stefan Kohl, Managing Director of 5-HT Digital Hub Chemistry & Health.

The eHealth Symposium 2020 was organized by the Business + Innovation Center Kaiserslautern (bic), Empolis Information Management GmbH, Westpfalz-Klinikum GmbH and the 5-HT Digital Hub Chemistry&Health. The aim is to strengthen interdisciplinary cooperation between regional players in medicine, research, business and politics in the southwest.

Participants praised the good interdisciplinary mix of specialist presentations and start-up pitches from the entire southwest. We are pleased about the many thematic suggestions for 2021 as well as the consistently very positive feedback from the participants and their willingness to participate again in the next eHealth Symposium, which was already expressed at the end of the event.