Karliczek: Preparing the Healthcare System for Future Crises with Artificial Intelligence Better

Federal Research Minister Anja Karliczek explains:

"The Corona pandemic shows us how important a networked and cooperative approach, especially in healthcare, is. Artificial intelligence can significantly help us better equip our healthcare system for future crises. Therefore, we are funding the six new 'Digital Progress Hubs Health' with a total of 50 million euros until 2025. One central question that the research consortia want to address, for example, is: How many intensive care beds do we need to keep available where and when for seriously ill patients? One of our new Progress Hubs is therefore dedicated to this question based on networked information about hospital bed capacities, current infection numbers, and the forecast for the course of infections. Through this networking, intelligent algorithms will be able to predict the number of intensive care beds to be kept available much more precisely than is currently possible. They will process more information, such as the age and possible pre-existing conditions of the patients factors that strongly influence their length of stay in intensive care units. With artificial intelligence, we will succeed in making medical therapies and care concepts even better. This will also be made possible by the additional funds for promoting AI, which are now available through the government's economic and future package to overcome the pandemic."

Connecting data, improving healthcare - this is what the Medical Informatics Initiative and the "Digital Progress Hubs Health" of the German government stand for. The BMBF is providing around 230 million euros for this purpose from 2018 to 2025. In the setup and networking phase (2018-2022), the BMBF is funding four medical informatics consortia that have been building medical data integration centers since 2018. Using specific use cases, they demonstrate the added value of their IT architectures and software solutions in practice. In a future expansion and extension phase starting in 2023, additional partners are to integrate proven solutions into everyday care so that patients in Germany can benefit nationwide from the progress of the Medical Informatics Initiative.

The BMBF has been funding the "Digital Progress Hubs Health" with a total of 50 million euros until 2025 since this year, including funds from the additional funds provided for implementing the AI strategy from the government's economic and future package. The central goal is to improve data availability and collaboration between healthcare sectors - from inpatient and outpatient treatment to rehabilitation and follow-up care in general practitioner practices. For optimal decisions, all actors at every point in the healthcare system must be able to assess the overall picture of an individual course of illness. At the same time, healthcare research data should help optimize care models and, for example, develop new therapies. To drive this forward, research, care, and IT experts collaborate closely with patients in the "Digital Progress Hubs Health."

Artificial intelligence is a key technology with great potential for value creation and improving individual living conditions. The expansion of Germany's and Europe's technological sovereignty in AI is, therefore, a central goal of the BMBF. This requires targeted further development of AI methods and tools, rapid application in as many areas as possible, and parallel training of the necessary specialists. Therefore, research, transfer to application, and education are the focal points of the BMBF's AI funding initiatives.

With its AI funding and support for young scientists, the BMBF has laid the foundation for Germany's strong position in AI and is intensifying its efforts with the funds released in June from the government's economic and future package. The BMBF will receive a total of 770 million euros from this package until 2025.