Health Informatics Research Group

The challenges and opportunities of the digitization of the health care system are fully reflected in Lower Saxony, both in the breadth of the care structures with rural regions and conurbations, and in top-level research in medicine and informatics with synergetic interdisciplinary combination, as well as in application-oriented research in these areas.
At the same time, digitisation offers the potential to meet the challenges of demographic change and the shortage of skilled workers. New forms of health care are emerging here, which, for example, will make a broader use of telemedicine and new medical devices particularly relevant for rural areas. The traditional sectoral structure must be more strongly networked and reorganised. Consistent digital processes are necessary.

The effect of greater individualization in patient care through new diagnostic procedures and tailored therapies is being complemented by the development towards a more comprehensive health awareness of the individual with new offers through fitness and lifestyle equipment, as well as increasing self-management, especially in the case of chronic diseases. New players from the Internet industry are addressing this segment and are thus becoming part of the overall care structure. Traditional health care facilities thus have the opportunity to distinguish themselves by offering lifelong prevention and support for each individual, even beyond their specific case of treatment.
Dealing with these new data and methods requires the teaching of new fields of competence in education, training and further education for the participating professions in medicine, computer science, medical informatics and the health care professions (nursing, physiotherapy, etc.). The teaching of the necessary digital competencies of patients, relatives and citizens in general must also be taken into account.
The central topics for the Future Laboratory Health are therefore
Digital methods in care and nursing: The possibilities and potentials of digitalisation are to be shown in practical applications and thus to promote their dissemination. The results must demonstrate advantages for people. The associated methodology in the field of data science must be promoted as an interdisciplinary research approach. This requires the cooperation of different disciplines, but also solutions to the structural challenges regarding infrastructures, linking applications and methods.
Evidence- and data-based medicine: Lower Saxony has an excellent medical research that has proven itself in national and international competition. This position must be maintained and expanded through data-driven research. To this end, current and future activities for networking data, analysis and data-driven research are to be promoted.
Health-promoting living environments: In an aging, but at the same time more health-oriented society, new offers must be created to maintain a high quality of life throughout all phases of life. This includes support in the home environment as well as support with new possibilities ranging from smart implants to novel (bio)sensor devices.
Personalized medicine: The availability of large amounts of data from partly new sources not only allows new possibilities in the analysis and evaluation of large populations with regard to epidemiological questions, but also promises new potentials in the individual treatment of each individual. In recent years, terms such as precision medicine or systems medicine have been coined and sometimes controversially discussed. However, the technical, ethically and economically justifiable possibilities are still in their infancy and significant innovations are to be expected, which must be both researched and transferred to practical application.
Care research: In order to provide optimal care for patients, a holistic view of the entire care chain from home care to high-performance medicine in a university hospital is necessary. Through this comprehensive approach, changes in our health care system can be better understood and shaped in a future-oriented way. The necessary transformation processes are complex and require a precise model of the health care system in Lower Saxony so that it can be simulated in advance which measures are promising and how resources can be used sensibly.
Training and teaching: The necessary new competencies, which are needed in research (e.g. data science in medicine) as well as in the entire health care system, are to be taught in a suitable way. Greater openness to the wider community is necessary in order to be able to make self-determined decisions about one's own health. The spectrum of knowledge transfer will range from university teaching to family home care in a digital world to the critical handling of one's own health data.
Taking into account the manifold aspects of digitisation in health research and care, priorities are to be set which are particularly relevant for Lower Saxony, which take up the respective strengths and take into account weaknesses. The following key topics are relevant for the Future Lab:

• Translational medicine: Lower Saxony has numerous institutions with successful medical research and, with its university hospitals, has knowledge centres of high-performance medicine. The translation between these worlds is a highly relevant and important step, without which personalized medicine or systems medicine will not be possible. There are already projects in this area in Lower Saxony, for example, which are advancing the cross-location data integration of clinical care and research. There are also numerous activities in sensor technology/signal processing or the development of assistance systems. These activities are to be expanded and networked into application-oriented applications.
• Area-based care: For an area-based state such as Lower Saxony, the sensible use of digitisation to improve health care outside the conurbations and cities is a relevant topic. For this purpose, interfaces to physicians in private practice are to be created, which provide support in the context of treatment and training with suitable data exchange. This also applies to the area of home care and health care, where assistive health technologies (AGT) and especially mobile systems can create new offers in order to maintain the greatest possible autonomy and high quality of life until old age.
• Health of the future: Digitization brings with it many questions that are not limited to technology, but also affect society as a whole and each individual. In the age of digitally supported fitness/health assistance, the boundaries between health care and healthy life planning are blurring. Individual prevention takes on a completely new significance. All this will lead to massive changes in our care system, the effects of which are not yet well understood.

In addition to these key issues, there are overarching, interdisciplinary challenges that affect digitisation in general and also play an important role in digital health. These include:

• It must be possible to process medical information by machine in a way that preserves its meaning and make it exchangeable between individual health care providers. Semantic interoperability is the basis of data-driven medical research and evidence-based individualised treatment. To this end, teaching, education and training must be adapted across the board for all disciplines involved, so that the new topics of digitisation are appropriately incorporated.
• Data and communication standards must necessarily be used and further developed to ensure syntactic interoperability and long-term availability of medical information. This is a complex and lengthy development, which depends on national and international coordination as well as on the necessary local implementation of the corresponding data collection in hospitals, outpatient facilities and other parties involved.
• Social and societal issues need to be addressed, as digitisation is leading to fundamental changes in all areas of our lives. The health sector is a particularly critical area that has an impact on every individual. The task is to make these changes understandable to society, to point out chances and risks and especially in the fields: ethics, data protection and (information) security. This includes ensuring digital participation across all social strata as well as critical dialogue and further education in order to be able to make self-determined and informed decisions.

Within the framework of the Future Laboratory, four main objectives will be addressed:

•     Development of a networked research platform
•     Integration of sensor technology for patient-oriented support
•     Promotion of education, training and further education programmes
•     Networking, communication and dialogue

The work is based on preliminary work from other projects and takes into account existing expertise in Lower Saxony with socially relevant application scenarios.
The transfer potential can be found in the further spread of networked research platforms, which allow the integration of various relevant data and analysis methods in the context of treatment and care. This enables new support services for patients, for example in home care. In the field of sensor technology there is a great potential for the improvement of health care, especially in rural, structurally weak regions. Applications range from the early detection of movement restrictions and the derivation of interventions before they lead to restrictions in functionality, to the support of intensive care patients in their home environment to improve safety and to relieve the burden on caregivers. Such data platforms are of high relevance for research. The combination of clinical data, research data and sensor data provides the basis for answering relevant research questions. The Future Laboratory combines this with the goal of knowledge transfer, especially through education and training.

Cooperation partners:

TU Braunschweig

Medizinische Hochschule Hannover

Universitätsmedizin Göttingen (UMG)

Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaft und Kunst Hildesheim, Holzminden, Göttingen

Hochschule Hannover (HsH)

Universität Oldenburg

Hochschule Osnabrück

Jade Hochschule Wilhelmshaven Oldenburg Elsfleth

Leibniz Universität Hannover

Project duration: 2019 - 2024

Donor of external funds: MWK

eHealth is a priority for European member states as technology can encourage preventative health, help citizens manage their health and social care needs and reduce the cost and utilisation of healthcare. While progress has been made, a number of barriers exist. There is a lack of awareness, understanding and confidence regarding technology amongst some health and other professionals. Better interdisciplinary education in eHealth would address these issues. Both the European Commission and World Health Organization have highlighted the importance of interprofessional education to prepare graduates and upskill the health and care workforce in Europe to facilitate collaborative practice.

The Interprofessional European eHealth Programme in Higher Education (eHealth4all@EU) project will address the high demand for health professionals to be competent and confident in eHealth. This collaborative, multidisciplinary, pan-European project aims to develop, implement and evaluate an interprofessional eHealth training programme for graduate students – the next generation of professionals - in higher education.

Graduate students from many disciplines such as medicine, nursing, allied health, informatics, engineering, business, law, and management will participate in the eHealth4all@EU project. Up to 250 graduate students (Masters and PhD) across four European health systems, in Germany, the United Kingdom (Scotland), Finland and Portugal, will receive high quality interprofessional eHealth training via three eLearning/Blended learning courses (covering interoperability, data protection and security, data analytics and big data) and two European Summer Schools (covering innovation & entrepreneurship, leadership and governance, ethical and legal issues). On completion of the project, the eHealth4all@EU programme will be embedded in the participating universities in Germany, Scotland (UK), Finland and the Portugal enabling thousands of students to be educated in this important area long-term. The novel problem-based learning and digitally supported curricula will be freely available.

In order to be able to provide the three courses and the two summer schools, the first five intellectual outputs lay the ground for these educational activities: O1, European eHealth Education: Policy and Practice Review will capture the local needs via focus groups and tailor global international recommendations accordingly. O2:  European eHealth Education Pedagogical Methods Complication will define methods in particular problem-based learning scenarios in combination with digital media and tools. Using the lessons learned from these two pieces of work, O3 eHealth4all@EU Curricular Framework will translate O1 and O2 into a curricular framework with learning outcomes, the syllabus, material to be searched, compiled and decided upon and finally assessment procedures to be determined for both the eLearning/Blended learning courses and European Summer School. In the next phase, all partner universities will collaborate to design three interactive eLearning/Blended learning courses (O4) building upon O1 to O3. They will cover the key eHealth topics; 1) Interoperability, 2) Data Protection and Data Security, and 3) Big Data and Analytics. A TeacherBot and virtual reality environments will be adapted and integrated into the eLearning platform to engage students and explore cultural competencies in interprofessional care using eHealth. The course material is designed to be applied in videoconferencing supported teamwork across countries. In O5 European Summer Schools on Interprofessional eHealth Education will cooperate to develop material for the face-to-face summer school where three additional key subjects will be taught and assessed; 1) Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2) Leadership and Governance and 3) Ethics and Legal. Local and independent evaluations will be designed and performed in O6 eHealth4all@EU Evaluations to obtain feedback from the graduate students and teachers who take part in and deliver both the eLearning courses and Summer Schools. O7 eHealth4all@EU Final Report will summarise all activities within the project and lay the ground for a scientific publication in a high impact journal.

The eHealth4all@EU project will take care that its activities have impact beyond the three courses and the two summer schools: There are two international multiplier events in Brussels and Porto and four local multiplier events at the four sites of the partners in Europe. The consortium partners will be present at major scientific conferences, e.g. MIE and MEDINFO, to present work in progress and the final results. All project partners are well interconnected in the scientific and professional community and will make use of these contacts to spread information about the achievements. The eHealth4all@EU project builds upon substantial experience in eHealth education at the four site and will move this experience to the next level for a wide audience.

Cooperation partners:

Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences

Osnabrück University

University of Eastern Finnland, Kuopio

University of Porto (Portugal)

Project duration: 2019 - 2022

Donor of external funds: Erasmus + strategic partnerships

For more information on the research project, please visit the website eHealth4all@EU | Hochschule Osnabrück (hs-osnabrueck.de)

The health care system faces great challenges in ensuring and optimising the quality of care - also in rural areas - and in realising this against the background of ethical, legal and economic framework conditions. New forms of care and cooperation are inevitable. Against the background of these challenges, the Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences and the University of Osnabrück have joined forces to combine research, teaching and practice transfer in the health sector. They are therefore working on setting up a joint health campus in which the health facilities in the region are actively involved.

The ROSE project is part of this health campus that is currently being set up. The project is dedicated to research focused on the Osnabrück region, the establishment of appropriate research funding structures and the development of institutionalised relationships with the health facilities in the region. The principle of learning through research, which is to serve as a motor for cooperation between universities and health care institutions, will apply. The "Learning Health Care in the Osnabrück-Emsland Region" is a 5-year measure that allows long-term relationships to be established. The core element is an exchange platform that bundles data from - for example - clinics, health networks, municipalities and universities. Other goals of ROSE include the establishment and operation of a graduate college of the University of Osnabrück on the topic of "Patient-centred care design through research" and institutionalised cooperation with health service providers in the region. ROSE is funded with 2.5 million euros from state funds by the "Niedersächsische Vorab".

Project duration: 2015-2020

Donor of external funds: VW Stiftung

Detailed information can be found on the homepage of the project.

The research focus Pro INITIATIVE eHealth - Identification, Adoption, Integration, Evaluation of Innovations will be funded by VW Vorab for a period of 5 years starting August 2015. It includes a graduate grant in cooperation with the University of Osnabrück.  Participating professors are Andrea Braun von Reinersdorff (WiSo), Stephan Kleuker (IuI), Frank Thiesing (IuI), Thorsten Litfin (Lingen) and Ursula Hübner (WiSo overall director). In addition to a large number of partners from the region and hospitals throughout Germany, the OECD is participating in this research priority. Together, instruments and methods of eHealth benchmarking are developed further and tested internationally (www.it-report-gesundheitswesen.de).

With the eHealth Demonstrator Electronically Supported Wound Management, which will be set up together with the Osnabrück Wound and Lymph Centre, eHealth innovations from technical and organisational areas will be presented as examples. For hospital IT managers, targeted further training measures are offered, which are synchronized with the bmbf joint project KeGL to the open university. The research focus Pro INITIATIVE eHealth is part of the joint health campus of the University of Osnabrück.

Project duration: 2015 - 2020

Donor of external funds: VW Stiftung

Detailed information can be found on the homepage of the project.

Health terminals offer secure access to personalised health-related services. They represent one of the possible ways to realize the sovereignty of citizens over their health data within the framework of the telematics infrastructure. Health terminals in this form have not yet been implemented in Germany. With the planned nationwide introduction of a total of 7,500 health terminals, initially only in pharmacies, and later also in hospitals and medical care centres, by the German Society for Infrastructure and Care Management (DeGIV), there is the opportunity for the first time to scientifically investigate the topic of health terminals.

The first health terminals were set up in August 2015 in the pilot region of Eschwege (Hesse) with an initially limited range of services in cooperation with the local health insurance funds BKK Werra-Meißner. Further regions - also in Lower Saxony - and health insurance funds will follow and during the course of the project further so-called plus services such as doctor information, second opinions or a personal archive will be offered on the terminal.

The GEva-ISI project aims to independently and neutrally evaluate the usability, use and usefulness of health terminals, using the example of DeGIV terminals and their applications, and to evaluate them in the context of international developments. The project contributes to the Gesundheitscampus Osnabrück, where the two Osnabrück universities and regional partners have set themselves the goal of "redesigning health care". The findings gained in the pilot region Eschwege can be used to draw conclusions about the introduction of terminals in the Osnabrück/Emsland region.

Cooperation partners:

DeGIV GmbH - German Society for Infrastructure and Care Management

University of Osnabrück

Project duration: 2018 - 2021

Donor of external funds: EFRE

PosiThera creates significant medical value within the diagnostic-therapy-aftercare/rehabilitation supply chain by providing context-sensitive and process-related decision support through information continuity. This is because continuity of care in such a supply chain is dependent on or presupposes continuity of information. An effective and efficient therapy of a chronic disease requires the coordination of the individual intersectoral and multi-professional treatment steps in order to create an effective medical and nursing care chain. For the first time, PosiThera enables information continuity through a common tool for decision support for all participants in the field of diagnostics and therapy of chronic wounds.

PosiThera produces a software solution of the same name for decision support and simulation of treatment approaches based on a set of rules and an expert system. The software solution is to be understood as a digital analogue of a real Comprehensive Wound Center (CWC). It follows the idea of a knowledge cooperation of different medical disciplines, with the aim of an interdisciplinary, multi-professional, intersectoral cooperation and coordination of the activities, as a basis of a problem-oriented care and medical care of the patients. The results of the decision support and simulation are presented in the context of the respective process step (diagnosis, therapy and aftercare) and actors (e.g. general practitioners, specialists, nurses). Depending on requirements, these results can be communicated to the other actors for discussion and joint agreement (joint decision making) or simply passed on to them for information after a decision has been taken (individual decision making). Thus PosiThera combines three essential elements of a medical therapy, namely 1. the decision making, 2. the therapy accompaniment and 3. the integration of multiple actors including the patient and his relatives into the supply chain. This concrete approach has so far neither been considered in the literature nor implemented in practice. Decision-supporting systems in medicine are indeed to be found in the scientific and practice-oriented discussion, but are only occasionally used in the German health care system, e.g. within the framework of drug therapy safety or within the framework of R&D projects, such as in the treatment of patients with chronic liver diseases. PosiThera picks up corresponding experiences with digital decision support and revolutionizes them by context reference, process orientation, multi-professionality and integration of the patient.

Project partners:

Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences

atacama Software GmbH (project coordination)

PlanOrg Informatik GmbH

University Medical Center Goettingen, Department of Medical Informatics

Project duration: 2017 - 2020

Donor of external funds: BMBF

Ausführliche Informationen erhalten Sie auf der Homepage des Projektes.

The background to the project is the high standard of health care required to ensure the safety of patients. Recently, there have been many frightening reports about health hazards caused by treatment errors. The analysis usually focuses on questions that are intended to identify the causes of these errors, such as the causes, those responsible or why a risk could not be prevented.

The highly innovative and transdisciplinary project deliberately takes a different view of patient safety. The focus should be on safety culture. The aim is not to react only after errors have occurred, but to avoid errors beforehand. Accordingly, the facility itself and its staff must be sensitive to potential malfunctions and errors. Greater flexibility and decision-making authority on the part of employees are also indispensable.

This is where the research project comes in and develops an interactive learning environment for the hospital sector in which hospital staff can learn the necessary skills for a safety culture. In the sense of a consistent change of perspective, positive examples are used for learning. In three case studies, the structural characteristics, possible influencing factors and mechanisms, which come about through proactive behaviour or a safety culture, are identified as successful examples of patient safety in hospitals and transferred into complex learning scenarios.

Project partners:

Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences

Osnabrück University

Freie Universität Berlin

Cooperation partners:

Schüchtermann-Schiller´sche Kliniken Bad Rothenfelde

Aktionsbündnis Patientensicherheit e.V.

Netzwerk Versorgungskontinuität in der Region Osnabrück e.V.

Project duration: 2016-2019

Donor of external funds: VW Stiftung

Detailed information can be found on the homepage of the project.

The contribution of Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences to the joint project "Competence Development of Healthcare Professionals in the Context of Lifelong Learning (KeGL)" focuses on the research and development of demand-oriented and modularised certificate offerings for the competence-oriented further training of healthcare professionals. The initiator at Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences is the Innovation Centre for Continuing Education led by Professor Dr. Andrea Braun von Reinersdorff, Heike Thiele and Alexander Karsten Wolf as well as Professor Dr. Ursula Hübner and Professor Dr. Wolfgang Arens-Fischer. With the embedding of new modules and certificate courses into the total offer of low-threshold, modularized offers in upwardly compatible form at the Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences, the further training offer in the health sector will be further developed. Particularly in the areas of patient safety management and health and medical informatics, new courses will be developed.

Detailed information on the project can be found on the project homepage. 

Project partners:

Osnabrück University

Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences

Hochschule University of Applied Sciences and Arts

Jade University of Applied Sciences

Project duration: 

2. funding phase: 2018 - 2020

1. funding phase: 2014 - 2018

Donor of external funds: BMBF

The EU-US eHealth Workforce Development Consortium has an overall goal of mapping, quantifying and projecting the need, supply and demand for workforce skills and competences, utilising these results to further develop IT skills and training programmes for the healthcare workforce. This work is a continuation and further development of the EU-US collaboration under the EU-US MoU eHealth Roadmap, leveraging the work this group has developed to date, including the HITCOMP Tool and Repository. Additionally, we hope to build upon that work to include intersecting it with foundational education and training methods and materials in eHealth. We will continue analysing the needs, trends and approaches to improve the health IT workforce. Finally, we will provide an interactive web platform in which end-users, educators, governments and industry can: communicate; exchange information; provide and locate opportunities for training, skills development and employment opportunities; and increase knowledge related to the eHealth, health information technology, and health informatics disciplines.

Project partners:

Hochschule Osnabrück

Omni Micro Systems and Omni Med Solutions UG

European Health Telematics Association

Tampere University of Technology

Steinbeis Innovation gGmbH

Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)

Project duration: 2016-2018

Third-party donor: Horizon2020

In the future, forms of cooperative patient care will determine the way in which patients are treated and cared for to an even greater extent than today. Electronic patient files have proven to be an effective source of information and have not yet been satisfactorily integrated into the interaction between the players. To this end, it is necessary to take better account of the cognitive basis of cooperation, i.e. the human information processing of the individual actors. CognIT health has therefore set itself the goal of identifying, implementing and experimentally testing concepts for IT suitable for cooperation. The human-information-human interface will play a central role in this, showing how well the actors can make their decisions and how well

Project duration: 2012 - 2015

Donor of external funds: VW Stiftung

By the end of 2012, more than half of Germany's citizens will be in possession of the electronic health card (eGK) and thus have electronic certificates for authentication and data encryption as part of the national telematics infrastructure (TI). Citizens will thus have an active, secure and trustworthy opportunity to participate in telematics applications - from the granting of authorizations to view medical data to the inspection of their own medical data.

One such citizen-oriented application explicitly named in §291a SGB V is the electronic patient file (hereinafter referred to as "ePA-291a"). In a research and development project (R&D) of the Federal Ministry of Health (2009-2011), the ePA-291a was initially developed and comprehensively specified as an integration platform for the exchange of medical data between service providers and citizens. As part of the continuation of the R&D project, the defined functionalities and patterns for the exchange of medical data between doctors and citizens on the basis of the specified and prototypically implemented ePA-291 platform are to be brought into the field in the current project.

The overriding goal is to demonstrate the value of the ePA-291a in real applications/scenarios for the integration of citizens, the efficiency of communication and the quality of the exchanged data by using an ePA according to §291a SGB V. The ePA-291a will be used for the integration of citizens, the efficiency of communication and the quality of the exchanged data. Since the exchange of information within the health care system is almost exclusively carried out by means of paper documents, the use of structured, electronic (transfer) documents on the basis of HL7 Clinical Document Architecture Release 2 (HL7 CDA) offers itself as a first application paradigm, since this guarantees the different degrees of interoperability and readability (human / application system). The increasing number of current developments of HL7 CDA documents both in Germany and on an international level confirms the practical relevance of structured documents based on HL7 CDA.

With the specification of the electronic nursing report as well as the work on an electronic wound report and an electronic physiotherapy report, the research group Computer Science in Health Care has already made a central contribution to the described application scenario. These results, as well as the specifications for the electronic doctor's letter and the electronic medication plan, can thus be used directly as structure-giving elements for the contents of a multi-layer electronic patient file in the sense of ePA-291a.

The development work started is a first step on the way to a standardized and thus ultimately usable citizen-oriented, multi-professional documentation within the ePA 291a for Germany. For a lasting and successful implementation of the project, it will also be necessary to embed the results in current international and, in particular, European developments or to harmonize them with them.

Cooperation partner:

Project management Prof. Dr. O. Rienhoff (Department of Medical Informatics of the University Medical Center Goettingen)

Project duration: 2012 - 2014

The goal is the development of an interdisciplinary training program on the possible applications of AAL technologies in inpatient and outpatient health care. Nursing staff as well as medical, therapeutic and socially active persons receive a qualified overview of available services and technologies. The aim is to enable them to understand the areas of application of AAL and to promote the use of supporting technologies. People from technical professions will be informed about the needs and living conditions of those people who can benefit from AAL. In the long term, the in-service training programme should stimulate communication processes between the various occupational groups and promote interdisciplinary cooperation.

The work planning of the project is based on distributed work packages in which each member of the consortium of competent and experienced institutions is involved. Based on a didactic concept, which provides for the interweaving of seminars with practice-oriented learning phases and multimedia, web-based learning content, the first step is to develop a learning goal-oriented curriculum and to plan the implementation of further education. Parallel to the implementation, the evaluation, the revision of the curriculum and the development of a business model for the long-term and sustainable establishment of the certified offer in the continuing education sector will take place.

The scientific and economic relevance of the topic AAL will be taken into account through accompanying research work and a sustainable marketing concept. The high regional importance as well as the national and international recognition of the applicant and the use of already well-developed regional networks are conducive to this. After the end of the project, the continuing education concept should also be transferred to other providers and educational institutions such as universities. On the one hand through the presence of the offers in the continuing education catalogues of the Centres for Continuing Education and Technology Transfer, the Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the Chamber of Trade and Commerce, and on the other hand through the integration of the offers in the Bachelor's and Master's degree programmes. The modularity of the offers and the approach to new learning methods, such as eLearning, also create attractive flexibility and allow heterogeneous groups of participants to make use of them, thus promoting the acceptance of the measures.

Project partners:

BITZ GmbH Braunschweig

Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts

Hannover Medical School (MHH)

Kooperationspartner:

Leibniz University Hannover

InnovAging

Center for Near Field Communication Management (CNM)

Chamber of industry and commerce Hannover

VDI Landesverband Niedersachsen

Distributed Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (DAI-Labor)

Project duration: 2011 - 2014

The use of IT in healthcare facilities can, as has been proven in many places, lead to an optimization of internal and cross-institutional care processes, which guarantee patient safety and contribute to a fact-oriented basis for clinical and administrative decisions. The implementation of IT requires a willingness to innovate and to take risks, because not every IT project necessarily leads to the desired goal. Against this background, the introduction of IT is not a self-runner, but is preferably successfully managed by those institutions that have very specific characteristics. The project "Health IT Adoption" - HITADO therefore aims at capturing the characteristics of healthcare institutions in order to predict the penetration of IT and in particular the implementation status of the electronic patient record (EHR). In particular, various regression methods are used for this purpose. The significant influencing variables are then used to determine an index that indicates the degree of "Health IT Adoption". This index refers to IT in health care in general (Health IT), HIT Index, and to the implementation status of the EPA in particular, EPA Index. The respective index will be examined for its quality (validity and reliability). Furthermore, the index will be determined separately for different types of health care facilities, as it can be assumed that hospitals make decisions based on different principles than established practices.

Project partners:

trinovis GmbH Hannover

GSG Gesellschaft für Standardprozesse im Gesundheitswesen Hannover

CORANTIS Kliniken gGmbH Vechta

Project duration: 2011 - 2013

Chronically ill, multimorbid and in need of care people in our society are often dependent on a multitude of health services of different actors from different sectors and health professions. The interaction of these structures is complex and requires a high degree of general and patient-oriented planning and coordination. The services to be provided are often initially coordinated at the end of an acute treatment by the physician in his classical role as the person responsible for the treatment. In the case of chronic, multiple illnesses, however, treatment and care are often provided by several medical specialists. In addition, there are nurses and therapists from various disciplines, as well as social workers and, last but not least, relatives. Only when these services are linked into an efficient "chain" by a secure but for the specialist profession transparent information volume can the quality and thus the cost-effectiveness of care be increased. An important element of mutual coordination is the regulated exchange of patient-related information. These form the backbone of continuity of care in the health care system. The project therefore intends to develop models for a systematic information chain management (IKM health) for a better and more economical care with special consideration of the strategic and tactical-operative level.

In current communication scenarios, the dissemination of nursing, therapeutic and social information is insufficiently taken into account. We therefore propose to extend the current scenario to include communication paths that integrate all actors, including patients and their families. In doing so, we want to focus exemplarily on those care cases in which the effect of a functioning information chain is most clearly demonstrable, namely in the care of people with multiple and/or chronic diseases. These include people with back pain, chronic wounds and tumor pain. As heterogeneous as these diseases may be in their etiology and clinical appearance, they are all associated with suffering and a significant reduction in quality of life. At best, it is a multi-professional team of experts dedicated to these patients.

Project partners:

Universitätsmedizin Göttingen, Abteilung für Medizininformatik, Prof. Dr. O. Rienhoff

Universität Osnabrück, FB Humanwissenschaften, Fachgebiet Pflegewissenschaft, Prof. Dr. H. Remmers

Cooperation partners:

Aribyte GmbH

Atacama Software GmbH

GewiNet - Kompetenzzentrum Gesundheitswirtschaft e.V.

Netzwerk Versorgungskontinuität in der Region Osnarück e.V.

Sanimed GmbH

Project duration: 2010 - 2012

It is known from literature that information gaps can endanger patient safety. However, the number, type, nature, background and relevance of specific information gaps and their concrete risk potential for the patient remain unclear. These gaps arise in the daily routine of multi-professional patient care. Against this background, the aim of the GAP.info project is a) to empirically identify errors and hazards, b) to prepare a target description in the form of models based on the risk potential and user needs, c) to select, parameterise and exemplarily provide marketable IT solutions according to the target specifications, and d) to evaluate the usefulness of these test applications in circumscribed scenarios.

On the basis of preliminary analyses, we suggest that the following instruments should be considered more closely as test applications: Instrument I for the selective, automated extraction of information from verbal communication, Instrument II for problem-oriented multi-professional progress documentation and Instrument III for document distribution and communication control. The participation of the end users is a central element of the model development and its implementation. It leads to a continuous approach from the errors to their elimination and to a clarification of the value of information in the practice of patient care.

With the electronic Care Chain Management (eCCM) project, principles of collaborative supply chain management (SCM) are transferred to patient care and implemented in practice. In particular, the aspects of (i) cross-organizational process orientation and control, (ii) the design of a smooth information flow, (iii) improved planning and (iv) the use of metrics from supply chain management will be adopted and adapted to the specifics of health care. Collaborative SCM is understood here as a comprehensive concept for the optimization and control of a cooperation between companies oriented to the needs of the end customer, which not only includes logistical but also any kind of collaborative processes.

Supply Chain Management - with its wealth of elaborated concepts - offers the opportunity to serve as an overarching model for cooperation in the healthcare sector and thus to draw on experiences that are initially new for the healthcare sector. The idea of controlling processes and the flow of information within SCM concepts makes them particularly attractive for the design of cooperative forms of healthcare. Although this approach is obvious, it has not yet been discussed in connection with eHealth or health telematics. Against this background, eCCM has two main objectives.

First main objective

The essential general processes between the service providers are to be described in the form of an abstract description. Furthermore, the process descriptions are to be supplemented by the information to be exchanged. For this purpose, existing information models and message and document standards (HL7/CDA, CCR, etc.) will be used. The result is a Care Chain Management Model (CCMM), which is oriented to SCM concepts and standards known in the health care system.

Second main objective

Secondly, the project aims to further specify the CCMM, which is initially formulated in general terms, in a selected area. Interface processes of the medical, nursing, therapeutic and social care of elderly people in particular will be analysed and integrated into the CCMM. The care of chronically ill, multimorbid and elderly people represents a particular challenge for health policy due to demographic developments and is a good example of the high need for coordination among the service providers involved in a cooperative form of care. The specification of the CCMM concerns the description of the interface processes, the associated information requirements and the transmitted data (Figure 1) as well as the metrics for controlling the processes. In order to produce these descriptions as generally valid and precise as possible, the corresponding work is carried out in close coordination with the "Netzwerk Versorgungskontinuität in der Region Osnabrück e.V.", which acts as the first instance of consensus building and as a multiplier. A further multiplier is Nordmedia Hannover, which carries the findings from the project into the eHealth Initiative Lower Saxony.
The approaches developed in the model will be combined with the data on the current use of information and communication technology obtained through a comprehensive survey.
in the healthcare sector. The planned survey is based on the approach of the "IT Report Healthcare".

Project management:

Prof. Dr. Ursula Hübner

Prof. Dr. Andreas Frey

Cooperation partners:

Nordmedia Hannover (e-Health Niedersachsen Koordinator)

Netzwerk Versorgungskontinuität in der Region Osnabrück e.V.

Project duration: 2007 bis 2009

Funding: MWK Hannover (AGIP)

Relation to other projects:

IT Report Healthcare

Continuity of Care (CoCa)

In the "IT Report Healthcare", the project of the same name aimed to publish the results of several extensive surveys of institutions and manufacturers in the health care sector. The results collected in the years 2005/2006 and 2007 were published in two editions of the report (IT Report 2007 and IT Report 2008). Thus, a broad specialist public was informed about the current status of the use and distribution of information and communication solutions in health care facilities, especially in acute hospitals. The surveys were structured in a comparable way and differed only in their focus: while the 2005/2006 study focused on IT solutions for integrated care, the 2007 studies focused on nursing information systems and on the application of e-business processes, in particular methods of procuring drugs and medical products in hospitals. Two surveys on nursing information systems took place: one in Germany and one in Austria - in both cases with the same survey instrument.

The questionnaires in all studies contained questions on demographic aspects of the hospitals, on the current use of clinical and management modules of a hospital information system (HIS), on the status of the electronic patient file, as well as on the IT department and the financial situation.

In addition to the description of the current situation, the planning for the coming year was also taken into account, as were the perceived barriers to the use of information technology and communication technology.

Since the customer side (facilities) depends on the supplier side (manufacturers), the manufacturers of IT solutions in the healthcare sector were also surveyed in 2005/2006. The survey focused primarily on the product portfolio and barriers.

The samples of all surveys (returns from the overall survey) were examined for representativeness, i.e. the correspondence between sample and population characteristics (size, geographical location and sponsorship). Due to the largely identical structure of the studies, comparisons between the years are possible as well as a comparison of the results on the use of nursing information systems from 2002. Furthermore, the results of the surveys on the subject of "electronic patient files" were placed in the context of studies from other countries, in particular from the HIMSS (Health Information Management Systems Society) in the USA. The parallel collection of data from Germany and Austria makes it possible to compare countries with regard to the use of nursing information systems.

From the variety of data and findings, the results of the Electronic Patient Record (EHR) are presented below. Under an Electronic Patient Record (EHR) an "electronically generated and based collection of patient-centered clinical information, of all departments / wards of an institution (institution-bound) of the health care system about the current health status and about previous hospital stays (patient history) of a patient. The EPA is supported by clinical decision systems supports and replaces medical paper documentation as the primary source of information." Figure 1 shows the status of the EPA in Germany, Austria and the USA as of 2007.

When asked which hospitals are the most innovative in terms of EPA use, it can be seen that the hospitals with fully functional EPAs and those that currently implement EPAs are characterised primarily by "many clinical HIS modules", but also to a lesser extent by "many beds" and "satisfied with IT products". In contrast, the characteristics "few clinical HIS modules" and "no IT department" are grouped around houses that do not have or plan an EPA. The IT budget could not differentiate between the groups, nor the sponsorship with the characteristics "private", "non-profit" and "public". The results of the IT report have been presented many times since 2006, including to colleagues from Tokyo University who visited Osnabrück in 2006 and 2007. A return visit to Tokyo took place in January 2008.

Project management:

Prof. Dr. Ursula Hübner

Prof. Dr. Andreas Frey

Cooperation partners:

Nordmedia Hannover (e-Health Niedersachsen Koordinator)

VHitG Berlin

UMIT und TILAK Innsbruck (Befragung in Österreich)

Project duration: 2005 bis 2007

Funding:

MWK Hannover (AGIP)

bmbf (Kooperation mit Japan)

Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Arbeit und Verkehr Hannover (Publikation der Berichte)

VHitG

LEP AG St. Gallen (Spenden für den Druck der Berichte)

The aim of the cross-university project is to develop virtual modules for already accredited and newly accredited Master's programmes in health care, especially in nursing science and health management, which will be carried out in different degrees of distance and attendance as blended learning events. The aim is (i) to be able to offer undergraduate Master's programmes with distance learning, (ii) to enable specific new Master's programmes (e.g. in Palliative Care at the University of Osnabrück) through synergies, (iii) to improve teaching, i.e. to activate students more strongly and to integrate external experts into teaching. The following module groups with the respective modules will be designed, developed, tested and evaluated by the project.

Module group Methodology (2 modules):

Interpretation of scientific studies, information/knowledge representation

Module group Health Organization (5 modules):

Organizational development and change management, eBuisness in health care, knowledge management, communicative and educational basics in an interdisciplinary context, educational work in an interdisciplinary context

Modulgruppe Gesellschaft (1 Modul):

Health economics

A module is defined as a self-contained blended learning course with usually 5 credit points (150 hours workload for students), which correspond on average to 3 SWS. The MoPPS module database of the Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences provides orientation for module creation. All modules are designed as events in Stud.IP, which represents the technical organisational framework.

The modules are subdivided into the two areas `knowledge transfer´ and ` knowledge deepening ´, which have different didactic objectives and thus involve different didactic tools.

The didactic concept is based on the macrofactors of the Transactional Theory of Moore (1993), according to which educational measures can be described by them,

• to what extent the learning process is pre-structured, i.e. learning objectives, learning content and learning methods are given (structure),
• the extent to which interactions between learners and teachers are facilitated and promoted (dialogue),
• to what extent self-directed learning is possible (autonomy).

Quality assurance and internal evaluation are the responsibility of an independent project partner (Uni OL) who does not develop modules.

All modules are based on current textbooks, current research results and publications in peer reviewed journals. If possible, colleagues who review the modules are consulted for technical coordination.

Project management:

Prof. Dr. Ursula Hübner in cooperation with

Prof. Dr. Hendrike Berger

Prof. Dr. Elke Hotze

Prof. Dr. Andrea Braun v. Reinersdorff

Projektpartner:

Osnabrück University (FB Human Sciences, VirtUOS)

University of Oldenburg (Didactic Centre)

Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts

Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences

Heidelberg University

Project duration: 2007 - 2009

Funding: ELAN III (MWK Niedersachsen)

Relation to other projects: prieL – Establishment of an eLearning infrastructure

The projected project places the processes and tools of electronically supported learning and teaching in the centre of a practice-integrating network formation of the university for the development and support of lifelong learning processes.

At its core, the project will cover the sub-steps of an eLearning accompanied process chain of academic education that begins with the transition from the school or employment system to the university, moves into the Bachelor's or Master's phase and then into the Alumni phase. Alumni are regarded here as an integral part of the university like students and teachers. They use the university's elearning resources for lifelong further education, for professional and social networking and for recruiting graduates for their companies and institutions. In return, the university binds alumni and others practitioners as mentors, speakers and lecturers in practical events.
In the transitional field between school and university, online courses for pupils will recruit and qualify future students. The platform also provides contact and communication opportunities for a mentoring system that cooperatively brings together first-year students, students and alumni and promotes dialogue with practitioners. The organisation of such interlocking and complex processes takes place via a learning management platform, which is equipped with interfaces to other systems of the university infrastructure. The strategic goal of the project is to use organisational and technical measures to shape the practical interdependencies of the three phases (admission to studies, Bachelor's and/or Master's programme, alumni) and thus ensure the acquisition of competencies throughout the course of one's life.

The open source platform (Stud.IP), which has been introduced throughout the university since 2004 and is used by all faculties, is to be used to bring together the concepts and experiences already tested in individual projects within the framework of an organisational development project to form an overall concept of a practice-integrating learning basis.

Within the framework of the project, the aspects of concept development, implementation and evaluation are dealt with in the following sub-steps:

• Acquisition of sustainable skills for dealing with new media and the conversion to an active learning paradigm already in the university entry phase after prior coordination and study counselling with the schools, but at the latest at the beginning of the first semester in the Bachelor's and Master's programmes.
• Realisation of practice-oriented courses in Bachelor programmes using new media and by integrating alumni (and other professional practitioners).
• Implementation of further education offers and (part-time) master programmes with distance learning phases, which are made possible by eLearning procedures, as well as eLearning mediated preparation for PhD programmes in cooperation with German, but also international partner universities.
• Implementation of alumni programs taking into account further education and network offers (social networks, skill databases, internship and job exchanges, chat with the practice).

The learning management platform provides an integrated environment for managing events, retrieving electronic (multimedia) learning content and supporting interpersonal communication, especially between students and alumni. It is the environment with which all students familiarise themselves in the university entrance phase at the latest at the beginning of the first semester and which accompanies them up to alumni status. This is made possible by the fact that all functions relating to studies and teaching are mapped on the platform or implemented in ongoing activities.

Project management:

Prof. Dr. Ursula Hübner

Project partners:

Prof. Dr. Karsten Morisse (Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science)

Prof. Dr. Robby Andersson und Prof. Dr. Harald Grygo (Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and Landscape Architecture)

Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Wiese (Faculty of Management, Culture and Technology)

Project duration: 2005 bis 2008

Funding: bmbf und MWK Niedersachsen

Relation to other projects:

Knowledge management in care: conception, implementation and evaluation of an information model

ViMM healthcare – module creation

With the CoCa project, the concepts for an electronic nursing report from Telecare were taken up, expanded, implemented and evaluated. Thus, for the first time in German nursing practice, a cross-institutional exchange of patient-related information was established. Data to ensure continuity of supply possible. Based on the technical results of the predecessor project GetTogether a secure communication structure was created to transmit nursing, social law, social and medical data of a patient.

The results of the respective implementation stages were regularly evaluated. This not only took into account the concept of participatory software development (user involvement), but also adapted the software to the changing requirements of the users.

The test environment was the "Network Continuity of Care in the Osnabrück Region", which has meanwhile established itself as a non-profit association and whose member institutions are striving for an exchange of nursing patient information. Within the framework of the association, the work of CoCa will be continued, in particular the dissemination of a culture of continuity of care. Through workshops, further training measures, further development of cross-institutional catalogues and the development of electronic transmission methods - also within the framework of the electronic health card.

Project management:

Prof. Dr. Ursula Hübner

Projektpartner:

Netzwerk Versorgungskontinuität in der Region Osnabrück e.V.

Osnatel GmbH Osnabrück

Deutsche HL7 Benutzergruppe c/o Universität Gießen

trinovis GmbH Hannover

Project duration: 2001 - 2006

Funding: AGIP, BBR

Chronic diseases lead to increased contact between patients and health care providers. It is not uncommon for patients to commute repeatedly between different sectors of the health care system. Such scenarios require the seamless transmission of patient data via telematics. This is because the subsequent facility should be able to build on the results and findings of the previous facilities. The continuity not only guarantees a reduction of double surveys, but also a continuation of the successful forms of treatment for the individual patient.

Even if these arguments are widely accepted, the practice provides a different picture. Up to 90% of a patient's medical data, which are considered important, are missing at the time of further care by another institution (Hübner et al. 2002). Furthermore, the documents (care transfer forms) which are intended for the forwarding of information are not in a position to provide information relevant to the care process (Hübner & Giehoff 2002). These deficits are due to the fact that there is only a culture limited to a few forms (e.g. doctor's letter) for the passing on of information within the health care system.

In nursing care, there is also the problem of a lack of a uniform language and tools for appropriate transfer. In Telecare, the applicability of the classifications available in German-speaking countries was evaluated for the first time
(Berekoven et al. 2002, Hübner & Giehoff 2003a/b) and a concept was developed for an Internet-based care transfer report and the information to be transmitted in it (Giehoff et al. 2002). With this work, the foundations for a electronic forwarding of care information, which was practically implemented in the CoCa project.

Project management:

Prof. Dr. Ursula Hübner

Project partners:

Paracelsus Klinik Osnabrück

Klinikum Osnabrück
Diakoniewerk (Küpper-Menke-Stift Osnabrück)
Pflegedienst B. Möllers

Pflegedienst am Schölerberg
Kirchenkreisamt Melle

Sanicare Bad Laer

Project duration: 2000 - 2003

Funding: AGIP Niedersachsen

eBusiness refers to the overall view of all internal and external processes of a company and their support through the use of information and communication technology, in particular the Internet. In the book "eBusiness in Healthcare", individual aspects of eBusiness are explained from an economic, technical and clinical point of view and placed in the overall context of a modern healthcare system. The authors take the developments in Germany, the USA and Great Britain equally into account and highlight similarities and differences between the countries in the electronic handling of business processes, especially for the procurement of pharmaceuticals and medical products.

In its 14 chapters, the book makes it clear that today business processes can no longer be considered without medical and nursing processes. Models of the
Supply chain management serves as an overall framework for the description and classification of currently important functions (electronic catalogs, electronic orders).
as well as those that will gain in importance in the future. This includes the use of worldwide standards such as electronic product and batch identification numbers, which are integrated into medical and nursing processes to ensure greater patient safety.

Section “Elements of eBusiness”
Chapter 1:

Ursula Hübner: Introduction to eBusiness
Chapter 2:

Volker Gehmlich: Opportunities of Supply Chain Management in Healthcare
Chapter 3:

Stefan Junginger, Eva Kabel: Business Process Analysis

Section “Technical Background”
Chapter 4:

Martin Staemmler: Integrated Information Systems
Chapter 5:

Ursula Hübner: Achieving Inter-Organizational Connectivity
Chapter 6:

Frank Brüggemann, Ursula Hübner: From Product Identification to Catalog Standards

Section “Applications and Experiences”
Chapter 7:

Karen Conway, Richard Perrin: The Evolution of eBusiness in Healthcare
Chapter 8 :

Keith Lilly: An Integrated Strategy for eProcurement - The Case for Leeds Teaching Hospitals
Chapter 9:

Barbara Van de Castle, Gina Szymanski: Supply Chain Management on Clinical Units
Chapter 10:

Marc Elmhorst: Business Analysis
Chapter 11:

Michael Schüller, Ursula Hübner: Logistics Services and Beyond
Chapter 12:

Ursula Hübner: The Experts‘ Opinion: Part I - the Healthcare Providers
Chapter 13:

Ursula Hübner: The Experts‘ Opinion: Part II - the Suppliers Section “Outlook”
Chapter 14:

Ursula Hübner: The Supply Chain Model of eBusiness in Healthcare

Publications:
Hübner Ursula; Elmhorst M.A. (Eds.): eBusiness in Healthcare. From eProcurement to Supply Chain Management. Springer New York, London 2007
erschienen in der Health Informatics Series von Hannah KJ
(Calgary) and Ball MJ (Baltimore) - Series Editors

Project management:

Prof. Dr. Ursula Hübner

Project partners:

trinovis GmbH Hannover, GHX Global Healthcare Exchange USA

GSG Gesellschaft für Standardprozesse im Gesundheitswesen Hannover

Prof. Volker Gehmlich

Prof. Dr. Michael Schüller

Springer New York (Series Publisher), London (Project Management)

Project duration: 2005 - 2007

Funding: Sanicare Bad Laer (für Forschungsfreistellung)

Relation to other projects: IT Report Healthcare

The results of the expert interviews published in the book were subjected to a quantitative analysis in the substudy "eBusiness". The statements made by the experts could essentially be confirmed.

Doctoral candidate: Nicole Egbert

Cooperating university: Universität Osnabrück, Prof. Dr. Birgit Babitsch

Year of the dissertation: 2024

Doctoral candidate: Jan-Patrick Weiß

Cooperating university: Universität Osnabrück, Prof. Dr. Teuteberg

Year of the dissertation: 2021

Doctoral candidate: Jens Rauch

Cooperating University: Osnabrück University, Prof. Dr. Babitsch

Year of the dissertation: 2020

Doctoral candidate: Georg Schulte

Cooperating University: Osnabrück University, Prof. Dr. Remmers

Year of the dissertation: 2019

Doctoral candidate: Jan-David Liebe

Cooperating university: Osnabrück University, Prof. Dr. Thomas

Year of the dissertation: 2018

Doctoral candidate: Daniel Flemming

Cooperating university: Osnabrück University, Prof. Dr. Remmers

Year of the dissertation: 2015

Doctoral candidate: Dr. Björn Sellemann

Cooperating university: University Duisburg-Essen, Prof. Dr. Stausberg

Year of the dissertation: 2012

Doctoral candidate: Carsten Giehoff

Cooperating university: University Duisburg-Essen, Prof. Dr. Stausberg

Year of the dissertation: 2008