Students of the "Health Economics in Practice (GiP)" course on a field trip to Hamburg to visit the UKE's Smart Hospital and DAK-Gesundheit's Digital Board.
At the Smart Hospital of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) and the statutory health insurance company DAK-Gesundheit, the topic of digitalization is at the top of the agenda. Students of the elective specialization "Innovation Management and Digitization in Healthcare" in the Bachelor's program "Health Economics in Practice" were able to see this for themselves during their on-site excursion in the winter semester 2019/2020.
While many hospitals still work with paper files and fax machines, the UKE was the first university hospital in Europe to introduce digital patient files for the entire hospital in 2011. The team around Dr. Gunda Ohm, Head of Strategic Development at UKE, presented the main topics in strategic corporate development. The group around Prof. Dr. Jasmina Stoebel, who organized the excursion, gained profound insights into the structure of care contracts and outpatient networks as well as telemedical applications (e.g. tele-radiology and StroCare) and digital networking (e.g. with outpatient practices or with patients) of the UKE. Prof. Dr. Augustin, head of the Institute for Health Services Research in Dermatology and Nursing Professions, presented the telemedical support for wound care of patients to the group in impressive pictures. In this way, misdiagnoses could be corrected and unnecessary incorrect treatments such as amputations could be prevented. Finally, the students were given a tour of the digital hospital pharmacy. The pharmacy team led by Dr. Michael Baehr has done an impressive job of radically transforming medication supply, digitizing workflows, optimizing processes, and introducing a closed digital medication process, which is described in technical jargon as "Closed Loop of Medication Administration, CLMA." This innovative medication process significantly improves drug therapy safety as well as communication between pharmacists and physicians.
Prof. Dr. Herbert Rebscher, former Chairman of the Board of DAK-Gesundheit, opened the visit to the Digital Board of the health insurance company with his presentation on digitalization in healthcare and gave a very differentiated and clear presentation of topics such as Big Data, precision medicine and artificial intelligence. Afterwards, the group was given an insight into the digitalization strategy of DAK-Gesundheit. DAK-Digital's target picture includes both the creation of digital foundations in its own organization and the development and provision of innovative digital solutions for patients* and service providers* in the healthcare sector. Finally, the discussion round was opened, in which the students contributed their valuable input on the opportunities and challenges of digitalization for insured persons and health insurance companies.
"Both UKE and DAK-Gesundheit are certainly benchmarks when it comes to digitalization," says Prof. Dr. Jasmina Stoebel, assessing both players in the healthcare sector. And adds: "For the students, it is important to experience how theory is put into practice, opportunities are seized and hurdles are overcome. That's what we were able to experience here today. In addition to digital sovereignty and data awareness, role models like this are crucial in the healthcare sector, because they make it clear to students that, despite many reservations, digitization in the healthcare sector is possible and necessary. In this way, they can help shape and advance this digital transformation in the future as critical advocates."
