Forum Digitalization and Quality Improvement: Challenges for Better Health Outcomes

All the Forum materials are available in form of recordings through the courses catalogue here.

The QI Forum entitled Digitalization & Quality Improvement: Challenges for Better Health Outcomes originally was planned as live event traditionally taking place in Heidelberg. It took place online in June 2020 and was hosted on a closed platform provided by evaplan in form of pre-recorded presentations & discussions from experts all over the world, presenting the status of their research and highlighting challenges, chances, risks and limitations of their digital projects (for speakers' bios click here). Participants had access to the platform a week before the live sessions took place and were able to watch all the recordings, comment on them, and ask questions. Dr Peter Lachman opened the forum with the following: 

“This conference is particularly important because it is now looking at what we really have to do to provide safe high-quality care that is either digital or virtual, and I think we have an opportunity with this conference to learn about this and have discussion in each of these sessions. The question really is how do we provide quality care within the new framework. What will happen after we go back to the norm if there will be a different norm because people might prefer to have digital or remote care and others may not? We’ll have the opportunity in the next few days to discuss the issues that we need to address and perhaps to give guidance to people who are designing the way we move forward. When Dr Marx and I discussed this about a year ago, about having this topic we had no idea how relevant it would be”

The Forum was organized by evaplan Ltd at the University Hospital Heidelberg, the International Society for Quality in Health Care (ISQua) , the aQua Institute for Applied Quality Improvement – Göttingen and the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health (HIGH) of Heidelberg University. 

The forum presentations were divided into 6 thematic groups:

Group 1: The eHealth Landscape and Ethical Aspects of Digitalisation –  German and International Perspectives

1. Chances and Challenges of Digitized Medicine. The Ethical Perspecitve by Dr Giovanni Rubeis

2. Using Modern Technology to Improve Health Systems: What Can History Teach Us? by Dr Peter Campbell

3. International Collaboration in Digital Health: Multidimensional Challenges and Opportunities by Akarsh Venkatasubramanian

Group 2: Data Security and Personal Data

1. COVID-19 Contact Tracing: Privacy, Confidentiality and Policy by Steven Uggowitzer

2. Privacy, Security and Confidentiality in the Digital Health Era by Steven Wanyee Macharia

Group 3: Policy and Global Networking

1. Global Solutions To Spread Knowledge In The Virtual Digital Age by Peter Lachman M.D. MPH. M.B.B.Ch., FRCPCH, FCP (SA), FRCPI

2. Successful IT Projects, A Recipe From The Big Cookbook by Wolfgang Kersten

3. Digital Tools for Narrowing the Gap Between Clinical Research and Clinical Care by Prof Freimut Schliess 

4. Anna E.Schmaus-Klughammer Collaborative Systems In Cross Border Health Care

Group 4: Technical Solutions for Better Quality – Risks, Limitations and Opportunities

1. Digital ≠ Paperless - Novel interfaces for a new generation of digital health by Pratap Kumar MD, PhD

2. Digital Consiles for rare diseases by Björn Broge 

3. Augmented Intelligence – The Next Step? by Raban Heller, MD

4. Telemedical Initial Assessment in Modern Emergency Care by Tobias Herrmann

5. Electronic Kenya Quality Model for Health (E-KQMH) by Dr. Aisha O. Mohamed

Group 5: Patient Safety and Digitalisation

1. Transforming Patient Safety with Digital Solutions by Dr Juan Limo, MD, ISQua Expert

2. Interview on Patient Engagement and Empowerment through Health Information Technology by Ronen Rozenblum, Ph.D, MPH

3. Digitalisation and the Need of new Risk Management by Dr. rer. pol. Ilona Köster-Steinebach of the German Alliance for Patient Safety

Group 6: Capacity Development

1. Use of Digital Decision Support Tools to Improve Frontline Health Worker Performance by Steve Ollis, MBA, PMP 

2. The Training Robot for Ultrasound (TrainR4U) by António Lindo da Cunha and João Quintas 

3. Learning At The Heart Of Improving Health Care Quality And Making Health Outcomes Better by Nana Afriyie, WHO