SmartHospital.NRW

   

Advancing digitalization and the continuously growing amount of health data are enabling intelligent, personalized and precise medical applications for early health detection, diagnostics, treatment and follow-up care. State-of-the-art technologies (esp. artificial intelligence) can lead to increased efficiency, diagnostic support and relief of medical staff, which is of outstanding importance especially in situations like the current COVID-19 pandemic. However, the current quality and level of digitization in German hospitals appears to be insufficient. Most hospitals lack the digital structures that are required for the use of the latest (AI) technologies in medical practice. This is where the SmartHospital.NRW project, funded by the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia, begins.

The overall goal of the network project is to use AI to improve patient care, reduce the workload of hospital staff and make processes efficient. On the one hand, a process model for transforming traditional hospitals in NRW into smart hospitals is being developed. In particular, the concept should be transferable to the different degrees of digitization of the medical facilities in order to find broad application. On the other hand, innovative AI processes are being developed and tested for use in everyday practice. These include the automated creation of medical documents, the AI-supported analysis of health data to support diagnosis, and the use of voice control for the contactless and thus sterile operation of computers.

The project partners involved are characterized by different areas of expertise from science and industry. What all partners have in common is their know-how in the development and research of state-of-the-art technologies. The cooperation within SmartHospital.NRW enables an efficient and application-oriented transfer of knowledge and technology.