Berlin, 20.04.2023
The digitisation of the health care system is more topical than ever, which is also due to the recently published digitisation strategy for the health care system and nursing by the Federal Ministry of Health. This was also the topic of the DMEA press briefing, which took place via livestream on 19 April 2023.
Melanie Wendling, Managing Director of the Bundesverband Gesundheits-IT – bvitg e. V., Josefin Michaelis and Rania Abbas, spokeswomen of the young talent network bvitg_generation_next, as well as Heiko Mania, nursing expert and bvitg board member, gave a first taste of the most important topics of DMEA 2023, which will take place from 25 – 27 April 2023 in the Berlin exhibition halls, and discussed how a successful digital transformation of the healthcare sector can succeed. The decisive factor here is the will to work together of all actors in the healthcare sector.
“We must now focus together on the goal of comprehensively digitising the German health system. For me, three factors are crucial: reliability, commitment and responsibility. And this across legislative periods and sectors,” explained bvitg Executive Director Melanie Wendling.
There are currently around 300,000 unfilled positions in the health sector and the health IT industry is also suffering from a glaring shortage of young talent and skilled workers.
“We have to change the fact that young people come to us through lateral entrants and by chance. The goal must be to involve students at an early stage, e.g. to create dual courses of study or even our own apprenticeships, such as application support. People should want to be part of the implementation of the digitalisation strategy of the Federal Ministry of Health and that can only be achieved by drawing more attention to the sector – by making the sector more of a brand. But I believe that we will also get there, the more patient-oriented the health system becomes,” said Josefin Michaelis of bvitg_generation_next.
In this context, Rania Abbas drew attention to the two current focus topics of the young talent network: “In addition to the topic of promoting young talent, above all GreenIT topics as well as sustainability strategies in the healthcare system are gaining attention among users, manufacturers, but above all also in association work and politics.”
Another pressing topic is the digitalisation of care. Heiko Mania, care expert and bvitg board member, explained which factors are crucial for a successful digitisation of the care sector:
“It is not just about digitalisation alone, but about changing processes that should then reach the care professionals on the ground in the provision of care. The biggest construction sites we have at the moment, apart from the financing of digitisation, are the lack of a nationwide performant infrastructure and – since care is organised very sectorally – the issue of interoperability, as well as historical laws that were thought out of paper and need to be changed.”
Those involved in the press briefing look forward to continuing discussions on these and other industry topics at DMEA 2023 next week on site.
The recording of the press briefing 8in German), can be found at the following link: www.dmea.de/de/about/mediathek/