“We are exploring new Approaches to Healthcare”

At the Bosch Health Campus we pursue many different approaches to good health care, such as translational research, i.e. the rapid translation of research results into treatment at the bedside ("bench to bedside"). It’s a matter of great concern to me that we provide people with the best possible support across the entire continuum of care from prevention to medical therapy monitoring and aftercare. Advances in digitization are opening up great opportunities for this. 

Everyone ought to have access to healthcare and be able to find their way around the healthcare system, ideally before they become ill. This means that prevention must become a self-evident element of healthcare. But if someone does get ill, it is essential that everything is documented in a well-structured and accessible manner, so that all healthcare professionals involved in diagnosis, therapy, follow-up treatment and care can obtain a full picture of the entire person and their state of health, including their medical history, as quickly as possible. 

Unfortunately, not. The problem starts as early as anamnesis, i.e. recording a patient's complaints, medical history, and physical condition. Not every patient understands their body and modern medicine to such an extent that they can provide those treating them with a complex picture of their condition and medical history. This means that important information about the patient isn’t recorded. And often there are situations where patients are unable to talk about their medical history anyway because they are unconscious, for example. In such cases, lives could be saved if those treating the patient could immediately view the history of the illness, the medications administered, any interventions, and so on. At the same time, the healthcare system would benefit if costly multiple examinations were avoided.  

Yes, that's just one example. For one thing, it's not good to be exposed to X-rays too often. For another, the costs run into hundreds of euros. It becomes particularly expensive in the field of genome analysis since human DNA does not change in the short term. In an increasing number of diseases, these analyses are already part of the anamnesis, and they will increase significantly as a result of the new possibilities opened up by personalized medicine. It quite obviously makes no sense to sequence a person's genome over and over again.  

There must be clear rules. The data belong to the patients, who can make them available to a medical establishment to enable better treatment. Once a patient’s consent has been given, the data can, but do not necessarily have to be released for research purposes. Commercial use of the data must be prohibited. Patients are also entitled to know that employers or health insurers will not be informed about hereditary diseases or health risks. I’m convinced that people's concerns can be allayed through such rules and open discussion. At Bosch Health Campus, we advocate an enlightened and potential-oriented approach to data. 

All of us voluntarily leave very personal data on the web, for example when shopping online, and only very few people know what happens to those data. Yet many innovations in medicine, for example in the field of molecular tumor therapies, will only progress if numerous people anonymously make their health-related data available. You can regard this as their personal contribution to the healthcare of society. In other words, there has to be a legal framework to ensure that donating data for medical research becomes just as natural as donating blood. 

Here, we see great potential for innovation and benefits for every individual. That nursing staff, for example, are stressfully overworked has not just been common knowledge since the pandemic. Digital solutions, such as automated compilation of medication for individual patients, could provide real relief here. Or imagine the case where Ms. X ends up in trauma surgery because her cardiac arrhythmia caused her to fall and fracture the neck of her femur. The nursing staff on such a ward are not normally specially trained to look out for other illnesses. However, if this woman’s electronic patient file can provide them with relevant instructions, for example that her blood pressure should be measured twice as often, procedures will be simplified and patient safety increased. But of course, nursing staff need the appropriate digital skills. We’re already cooperating with the Careum Foundation to offer training projects which nursing staff from our Robert Bosch Hospital are also taking part in.