Digital health – The healthcare system of the future todayThe year 2020 will always be associated in history with the outbreak of the Corona pandemic. The crisis shows us the role digitalization of healthcare plays in addressing such challenges – not only for the care of patients*, but also for the working conditions of professionals, work processes, the analysis of infection pathways and the research of disease patterns and suitable therapy options. COVID-19 has uniquely challenged healthcare stakeholders to engage with the (digital) possibilities and given impetus to the public debate as well as to digitization. In recent weeks and months, we have seen what developments are already possible in a short time – and this in turn is also changing our ideas about the healthcare of the future.
The potential of digital technologies in the healthcare sector is already huge today. I am sure that we will take further steps towards a fully networked health care system already in the next few years. At Microsoft, we want to make our contribution to this and, as a technical partner, offer others the opportunity to realize their ideas.
-Till Osswald, Director Healthcare – Senior Industry Executive at Microsoft
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Digitizing for the sake of health
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– Kinderhaus AtemReich: Technologies create time for special children – apoQlar GmbH: Revolution in the hospital: Three-dimensional help during operations – Asklepios Klinik Altona: Pinpoint surgery with Microsoft HoloLens 2 and 3D visualization – BioVariance GmbH: DNA analysis brings help for cancer patients
Digitization in the healthcare sector will not stand still in 2021: The introduction of the electronic patient record, digital health applications (DiGA), digital care applications (DiPA), and political initiatives and legislative proposals are accelerating the process. According to the latest figures from the high-tech industry association Bitkom, German doctors are convinced that digitalization can help them make significant progress in the field of healthcare.
To further harness the power of technology in healthcare, Microsoft has launched Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, a new cloud offering specifically for healthcare. Enabling better patient experiences, better insights and better healthcare for industry players. The cloud is also the indispensable basis for innovation in healthcare, because it creates the conditions for comprehensive networking, organization-wide collaboration and the use of artificial intelligence.
Kinderhaus AtemReich: Technologies create time for special children
The AtemReich children's home is home to 18 children who cannot breathe without the help of technology. At the nonprofit facility in Munich's Nymphenburg district, the girls are. Boys from infancy to teenage years receive round-the-clock medical care. When budgets are tight and staffing situations are tight, modern technologies such as Microsoft Teams or Azure relieve the burden on staff and thus ensure high-quality care for children in the future as well.
An example of the meaningful use of digital technologies and the interaction of partners who have their hearts in the right place.
Microsoft's digital solutions give us time to devote to our children. And the evaluation of all data from the ventilators helps us to bring the quality of care to an even higher level anyway.
– Felicitas Hanne: Managing Director Kinderhaus AtemReich
Revolution in the hospital: Software from apoQlar brings mixed reality to the operating room
One in two Germans will develop cancer in their lifetime. But medicine offers hope – in recent decades, cancer patients' chances of survival have improved significantly. Treating physicians usually prepare for cancer operations on the basis of two-dimensional CT and MRI images: Where is the tumor, what is the anatomy, where are the nerve tracts?? During surgery, the doctor can view the 2D images on a screen, but where exactly an incision is ultimately made remains to a certain extent an estimate. To make this situation easier for the doctor, to prevent dangers and post-operations as a result of misjudgements, the team at apoQlar has developed the Virtual Surgery Intelligence (VSI) software. With the help of Microsoft HoloLens mixed reality glasses, surgeons can see CT and MRI images in 3D for the first time during surgery. They add crucial medical images to their reality and are able to operate more precisely.
We saw the potential to make everyday surgery easier for everyone involved: with VSI in combination with Microsoft HoloLens, we developed a tool that allows doctors to operate much more precisely, while also improving patient care.
– Sirko Pelzl: Managing Director apoQlar
Asklepios Klinik Altona digitizes patient education, operations and ward rounds
At the Asklepios Klinik Altona, more than 95 patients are treated each year.Provide outpatient and inpatient care to 000 patients. Imaging procedures such as X-rays and computed tomography (CT) are the basis of work for many doctors. The mostly two-dimensional images can show disease-related changes in organs, bones and tie.
Used correctly, this data has enormous potential to take patient care to the next level. For this purpose, the Asklepios Klinik Altona relies on digital technologies. It integrates Microsoft HoloLens mixed reality glasses into everyday clinical practice. Combined with the Virtual Surgery Intelligence (VSI) software from Microsoft Mixed Reality partner apoQlar GmbH, this becomes an application that benefits both doctor and patient: Black-and-white 2D images become realistic-looking 3D objects.
With VSI and Microsoft HoloLens, we're really making a quantum leap in patient care. We can work much more precisely during an operation. Avoid complications right from the start.
– Prof. Dr. med. Lars Gerhard Grobterlinden, Chief Physician of the Center for Orthopedics, Trauma Surgery and Spine Surgery Asklepios Klinik Altona
DNA analysis brings help for cancer patients: BioVariance improves individual medication via Azure Cloud Services
BioVariance uses Microsoft Azure Services to analyze patient data and gain information that can be used to tailor medications and therapies to individual patients in the most personalized way possible. As cloud experts, the team from Microsoft partner aConTech takes care of support and the necessary security measures. The goal is to give patients exactly the medicine they need.
BioVariance performs complex biomedical analyses of patient data for clients in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and healthcare sectors to improve diagnoses. The information can be used to significantly reduce the likelihood that a cancer patient will need chemotherapy, for example. Three years ago, the company developed an app for the best possible medication profiles, which can prolong the life of patients with lung cancer, for example.
The basis of BioVariance's work is the decoding of the human genome and thus of hereditary information, such as the color of our eyes, our fingerprints, our gender, and even which hereditary diseases lie dormant in us.
Soon, we will also use Microsoft Azure to analyze information from different databases retrospectively in order to track developments, because: The more knowledge we can generate and interpret, the more focused treatment can be.
– Dr. Josef Scheiber, CEO BioVariance
The future of health must be intelligent and networked. With our expertise and our technologies, we are at the side of our partners.