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Blog launched: Spotlight on digital health

07 Jul 2016 Dr. Johannes Bittner, Timo Thranberend Lesezeit 1 Minute

What relevance do healthcare apps have for healthcare? Is big data revolutionizing medicine? Is “Dr. Google” replacing our physicians? Stakeholders throughout the system agree that digitization is changing healthcare. Yet there are very different views and opinions regarding the opportunities and limits of digital transformation. With its “Digital Patient” project, the Bertelsmann Stiftung aims to identify and contextualize the developments underway while proposing solutions to the challenges on the horizon. It does this through a variety of offerings including analysis and the development of conceptual strategies – and now also with this blog.

Through our project work, we aim to help ensure that digital technologies are put at the service of health. In other words, we are not concerned with what’s technologically feasible but what delivers the greatest possible benefit for patients, that is, advancing the field of medicine. We do not view digital transformation of the health system as a new problem. On the contrary, we see digital technologies as having the capacity to solve existing challenges that can, for example, enhance patient safety, develop health literacy or improve access to medical services.

This blog will accompany our project, which was launched at the start of 2016. The blog is a forum in which we feature our project findings but also promote a platform for much-needed discussion. Indeed, we face a considerable challenge in developing patient-oriented digital health. Ensuring a tenable healthcare system for the future demands the interaction of many stakeholders.

In addition to the project’s team at the Bertelsmann Stiftung, external experts will also have their say in this blog. We invite all visitors and readers to comment on the contributions featured here on this blog and to discuss them critically in the spirit of constructive dialogue.

The Digital Patient team

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