Digitalisation in the healthcare system

Research team at the University of Göttingen aims to overcome digital barriers in the healthcare sector Digitalisation offers enormous opportunities within the healthcare sector: The evaluation of radiological image files using artificial intelligence can reduce the workload of radiologists, while the electronic maternity pass can improve the care of mothers-to-be. However, in practice, digital instruments often do not meet the expectations of medical staff, who also need to acquire digital skills to handle the instruments properly. A new project at the University of Göttingen is addressing this gap between digital solutions and the needs of healthcare professionals: In collaboration with project partners, researchers want to develop measures to facilitate the implementation of digital solutions in the healthcare sector and overcome current obstacles. The Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) is funding the project "HowToDIGITAL - Digital competences and development of digital tools for inpatient and outpatient care" for three years with a total of around 800,000 euros. "We want to identify processes and conditions under which useful digital technologies can be developed that are then actually used by employees in medical practices and hospitals," explains project manager Professor Manuel Trenz from the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics. The research project focuses in particular on specialists in radiology and gynaecology. As a first step, the researchers are investigating the existing digital systems and digital skills of employees.