Second Innovation Day - Caregiving in Regensburg
“Caregiving is not removed from technology.” This statement by Rupert Brenninger, from the Medizinische Enrichtungen des Bezirks Oberpfalz (medbo) may have split the participants at BioPark Regensburg on 26.02.2019 between amazement and agreement. There was exciting exchange through the good mix of structure of participants. Many fields in hospitals demonstrate a high degree of digitalization. This means mostly in operating rooms or intensive care or is limited to isolated solutions such as networked blood pressure monitors.
Also with digital solutions exchange between practice and development is decisive in understanding problems, receiving impulses and developing in a way catering for demand. It is above all in caregiving that practice is not linked enough at this time. In the institutions this is for one due to communication hurdles and complicated bdecision-making pathways, above all however to personal situations and lack of time.
That people are and remain the center point in all technological development was emphasized by Matthias Geier, Swisslog Healthcare: “Robots do not replace people. Robots increase productivity” and Jasper Böckel, Myosotis GmbH: “It is not about replacing caregivers. It is about supporting them to practice the profession as it was actually intended – with joy and for people.” With these words the podium discussion was ended which dealt with the hurdles of the development and implementation of innovation.
Financing remains a decisive topic both from the developers’ side as well as for the caregiving institutions. Promotional programs with long decision-making and preparation periods of several months are present in particular for IT startups with their comparatively brief development periods. From the users’ side the necessary resources for installation and operation of supporting technologies by the DRG System are not met enough by a long way. This reduces the readiness of the caregiving institutions to invest in new technologies and potentials on hand remain unused.
In 2018 HealthCare Regensburg and Forum MedTech Pharma had already led together a successful innovation day on the digitalization of caregiving (see BioPark PR No. 195). The goal of the format is to network the stakeholders in the healthcare industry, in particular to bring together users with developers and to generate new impulses which really help healthcare provision and form technologies in such a way to be closer to that in practice.
The exciting participation was demonstrated by Rupert Brenninger, Medizinische Enrichtungen des Bezirks Oberpfalz (medbo).
HealthCare Regensburg Project Manager Dr. Ilja Hagen (first from right) together with Bianca Heinrich (2nd from right) from Forum MedTech Pharma led the discussion. Participants on the podium (from left to right): Rupert Brenninger, Medizinischen Enrichtungen des Bezirks Oberpfalz (medbo); Arne Greiner, KDD Digital Healthcare GmbH; Jasper Böckel, Myosotis GmbH, Matthias Geier, Swisslog Healthcare (CH); Jennifer Wolter, RCHST Regensburg