Martin Peuker studied business engineering in Berlin, Germany. After completing his degree, he spent the formative years of his career as a senior manager with Siemens AG and Mummert Consulting AG. From the beginning, his focus has been IT development in the health care sector. In 2006, after several years as a consultant, he moved to Charité Universitaetsmedizin Berlin, heading their IT division as Deputy CIO. He oversaw all operational IT processes for administration, research & teaching as well as the development of a holistic sustainability strategy.
What are some of the key challenges and trends that have impacted healthcare recently?
Especially in Germany, the pandemic has shown how poorly the German healthcare system is digitized.
Who has access to data, how, and how it is stored. We still operate our data centers largely ourselves and in isolation. Real-time applications are still far too infrequent.
The good thing is that Germany has understood this and addressed it through many funding measures. Currently, 4.3 billion euros are being invested in the digitization of hospitals through the so-called Hospital Future Act. The funds are being used to catch up with nations that are already much further along.
What keeps you awake at night when it comes to some of the biggest problems in healthcare?
I basically have a good night's sleep. But what I think about a lot are the change processes. How are we going to collaborate in the future? How do we bring more agility to our processes? How do we achieve our future goals through digitization, also taking IT security into account?
How do we manage to network more nationally and internationally? Outstanding examples here are the University Medicine Network and the Medical Informatics Initiative. In essence, projects that promote data interoperability and implement concrete application examples. For example, in the area of infection management, oncology and cardiology or for rare diseases.
Can you tell us about the most recent project you worked on and what technological and process elements you used to make it successful?
Health Data Platform (HDP): Charité was selected as the pilot site for the development of internationally leading platforms for digital health research, care and prevention as part of the German government's digitization offensive. From the very beginning, the vision was to create a data hub with the HDP that anchors the slogan "Medicine needs data - data needs security - security requires structures" in its DNA. From this derives the goal of using the HDP to establish a fully digitally supported healthcare system as well as intersectoral health research. Due to its data architecture, the HDP provides the basis for predicting disease progression using artificial intelligence methods.
For example, in the nephrology department at Charité, the HDP is used as the basis foran Acute Kidney Insufficiency Alert, which warns of a probable kidney insufficiency in patients with a certain constellation of medical parameters. In the context of medical research, HDP provides the basis for the "Virtual Brain" initiative, for example.
As a university medicine, a lot of innovative impulses come from outside, so we try to collaborate as much as possible with startups and innovative companies
This makes it possible to link experimental brain data from a wide variety of sources and to understand the mechanisms behind them, with the aim of being able to test treatments on a patient's digital double in the future.
What technological trends do you see as exciting for the future of healthcare?
As mentioned earlier Mixes Reality, IoT in Healthcare to expand much more. Enabling digital twins. Going much more into secure DSGVO compliant cloud models.
How can budding and developing companies turn to you for suggestions on how to streamline their business?
As a university medicine, a lot of innovative impulses come from outside, so we try to collaborate as much as possible with startups and innovative companies. We use our Change Management department and a Digital Transformation team at Charité for this purpose, which enables an exchange in this way. Feel free to contact me directly. I would be delighted.
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