What will it take for digitization to create benefits for patients? Which conditions require adaptation, which “cultural” barriers must be overcome? The “Digital Health Roadmap” offers stakeholders in the health system thought-provoking input and concrete recommendations of action. Each recommendation has its roots in either the “30 under 40” expert network or findings resulting from our Digital Patient project.


Because the processes of digitization in health care are exceptionally dynamic, there is no single red thread to be identified and drawn. Nonetheless, we must do more than embrace the opportunities digitization holds; we need to take concrete action in order to ensure that digitization remains in the service of health.

Our goal with the Digital Health Roadmap tool is to help actions be taken. As an ongoing collection of recommended measures, the roadmap offers specific courses of action that can be implemented in isolation of other measures. These recommendations address and can be taken up by a wide range of actors in the health system.

How the recommendations are developed

Each recommendation is either developed and drafted by one or more of the “30 under 40” experts or derives from findings resulting from our studies and analyses conducted in the framework of the Digital Patient project.

New or established recommendations are put up for discussion, review and re-evaluation at annual workshops where the members of our expert network also evaluate each recommendation in terms of its relevance. Each evaluation that includes a minimum of ten expert opinions is published. All of the recommendations are published under the “Roadmap” module of this website.

The network-derived recommendations do not necessarily reflect the views of each member of the group; the same is true for the recommendations that emerge from the Digital Patient Project.

The recommendations for action in the roadmap draw upon activities carried out as part of the Digital Patient project and the expertise of the “30 under 40” Network.

How recommended actions are structured

In order to make the individual recommendations easy to understand and thus facilitate their implementation, we’ve structured them uniformly. In addition to numbering, titling and description, each recommendation includes the following data:

  • Editor
    This specifies whether the recommendation emerged from the Digital Patient project or the “30 under 40” expert network
  • Action area
    Each recommendation is slated for one of five action areas: information transfer between service providers; patient self-management and access to information; care provision – anywhere, anytime; aggregated health data for research, diagnostics and therapy; technologization of life and care
  • Relevance
    Relevance ratings are based on the evaluations given by at least ten experts from the “30 under 40” network that range from 0 (not relevant) to 5 (highly relevant)
  • Empirical foundation
    Here we provide information regarding the empirical underpinnings of each recommendation, whether it is based on “Expert opinion: This recommended action is based on the opinion of one or more experts” or “Research-based: This recommended action draws on the findings of one or more studies.” If a recommendation is research-based, sources are provided
  • Progress
    Here we indicate whether the recommendation for action is a published idea not yet implemented in practice or if there are practice-relevant activities already underway that could foster the implementation of the recommendation

In addition, recommendations for action that are thematically related will be cross-linked with each other.

Join the discussion

All Digital Health Roadmap recommendations for action are open to comment. We aim to promote an open discussion on each individual recommendation. Comments are also included in the discussion carried out at each annual workshop with our expert Network.

Follow the discussion on Twitter using the hashtag #roadmapdg.

“Digital Health Roadmap” (in German)


Keep up to date with the latest posts.
Click here to subscribe to our newsletter: