The DMEA – Connecting Digital Health, Europe’s leading annual meeting for digital health, took place in Berlin from 25 to 27 April. We take the highly successful event as an opportunity to draw a personal conclusion on the current state of digitalization in the healthcare sector.
First, we would like to thank our discussion partners for the valuable exchange and all the renowned experts from politics, business and science who provided important impulses in numerous events.
Larger than ever before
More than 700 exhibitors from almost 30 countries, including 80 exciting startups, presented themselves and their innovative solutions and products to over 16,000 visitors.
The focus areas of the event were
- Interoperability
- Telematics infrastructure
- IT security
- Electronic Patient Record (ePA)
- e-prescription
- Digital health applications (DiGA)
- Data protection
- Health data use
- Green IT
- And, of course, our big topic, AI
Ambitious goals spark optimism
Federal Minister of Health Prof. Karl Lauterbach, the patron of the DMEA, emphasized: “Digitalization will completely change modern medicine and promises breakthroughs in care and research. Patients will benefit just as much as our business location. Digitalization is a great opportunity, especially for the German economy, because Germany has great untapped potential. It is time to flip the switch. Our digital laws will create the conditions for better treatment and research in the coming months.”
- In the process, better networking between researchers in Europe and the US should improve Germany’s position in AI and digitalization research. And an essential aspect: data protection aspects must be considered in new research projects from the beginning.
- By 2025 plans, 80 per cent of patients will use the electronic patient file ePA and the e-prescription will become the standard.
- The introduction of a medical messenger is planned for this year to enable secure information exchange among doctors.
Good prospects and a lot of drive to be felt here!
Critical assessment for international startups
We were concerned, however, by the conversations we had with international startup founders.
- Most emphasized excessive bureaucracy and slowness, which currently make Germany unattractive as a location despite the importance and size of the market. For many, the DMEA was not the “place to be” to tackle concrete business.
- An example: a Scandinavian startup, already successfully established in the domestic market, presented its solution to a German hospital chain. This was dismissed based on data protection concerns (which were factually incorrect).
- Overall, an above-average number of foreign startups signaled their surprise at finding so little willingness to innovate in Germany compared to other countries.
- Incidentally, it was refreshing to hear the comment of the board of directors of a large German health insurance company, who complained during a panel discussion that Germany too often puts data protection before innovation projects.
It would be regrettable if we continue to fall behind, especially since we do not lead the way in providing our startups with capital, either.
More venture capital needed
- In terms of venture capital invested per capita, Germany is much weaker than France or the UK, for example. The gap to the USA is even greater, where VC investments are five times higher* per capita.
- Another challenge is the German ecosystem’s high dependence on international investors. Only a quarter of the financing volume comes from national investors – the lowest among the major European locations*.
Germany’s innovative strength and competitiveness must be strengthened. How can we mobilize the capital of private institutional investors for venture capital, for example?
AI startups have a tough time
- Germany’s position in research funding in artificial intelligence could be better by international standards. Swift action is indispensable here!
- In the USA, ten times as much money per capita is currently invested in AI startups as in Germany, and in Israel, even 19 times as much. Conversely, AI startups can hardly exploit their growth potential in Europe due to missing venture capital in this sector**.
Open innovation is underdeveloped in Germany
Collaboration between companies and startups has become a standard strategy internationally. Not only in the field of digital health.
- 72 per cent of European companies carry out projects with startups, two-thirds classify collaboration as strategically important to crucial. Sustainability, AI and cybersecurity are the three most important topics, in which companies push cooperation with startups.
- Unfortunately, German companies are lagging regarding their willingness to cooperate with startups. Here, only 57 per cent have already cooperated with a startup***.
Our conclusion:
We see a lot of goodwill and some real flagship projects in the public sector.
But there are still unnecessary obstacles, and some topics seem to repeat like a yearly mantra. How long have we been talking about interoperability, for example?
We must maintain international connections. International investors and startups need much more confidence in our creative will.
And: AI is a hot topic and on everyone’s lips. There is still too little expertise and judgement capabilities. We would like to see more projects to expand the knowledge around AI in medicine and the development of an AI ecosystem that is also relevant internationally.
We are looking forward to contributing to this with our new consulting company Synwisery.
Yours,
Natalie Erdmann & Dr. Stefan Braunewell
Managing Partners
Synwisery – More impact, less complexity
Sources
- *Startup Nation Deutschland: Statusanalyse. Entwicklungspotenziale. Wachstumshebel. | McKinsey & Company)
- **Künstliche Intelligenz: Herausforderung für Start-ups und Hochschulen – EXIST – Existenzgründungen aus der Wissenschaft
- ***de_open-innovation-report_2023_a4_onepage_final_web.pdf (soprasteria.com)
