Despite data protection being rooted in German culture,studies by PwC Germany have found that Germans are very willing to share patient data in the interests of[cancer]research and personalised medicine. Germany is playing a leading role in R&D dedicated to reaping AI’s medical potential. The German Research Centre for AI (DFKI) is the largest AI research centre worldwide in terms of number of employees and external funding. Among the DFKI projects that have medical applications are interactive textiles, cyber-physical systems, including the Bremen Ambient Assisted Living Lab, and intelligent analytics for massive data/smart data.

AI is increasingly being used to lower error rates and increase efficiency. The Diagnostic Radiology Clinic of the University Hospital in Essen has used a self-learning algorithm to train a system in lung fibrosis. After just a few learning cycles, the computer was making better diagnoses than a doctor. The AI in medicine market in Germany has been segmented on the basis of area of application into medical imaging and diagnostics, wearables, health and lifestyle management, healthcare biotech, insights and risk management, emergency room and hospital monitoring, drug discovery, mental health, virtual assistants and nutrition.

Key initiatives

1. GERMAN RESEARCH CENTRE FOR AI (DFKI)

www.dfki.de/en/web/

Among the DFKI projects that have medical applications are interactive textiles, cyber-physical systems, including the Bremen Ambient Assisted Living Lab, and intelligent analytics for massive data/smart data. Self-financed through research commissions

2. FRAUNHOFER INSTITUTE FOR INTELLIGENT ANALYSIS AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS (IAIS)

Working on medical applications of bigdata.Itisalsocooperatingwith the Fraunhofer Institute for Medical Image Computing, MEVIS, on applying medical image computing and training a computer to teach itself to identify patterns in diagnostic images that indicate disease. Focus at IAIS are technologies for big data analytics, monitoring and decision support. REACH – Responsive Engagement of the Elderly Promoting Activity and Customized Healthcare develops modular, personalized medical and ethical acceptable solutions integrated in and around buildings (clinical environments, rehabilitation settings, care homes, and home care), which allow an intelligent prediction (considering both personal medical history as well as real-time gathered data from a series of embedded sensors) about the health status of people/patients.

3. ADA HEALTH

ada.com/about/

Founded in 2011 by a team of doctors, scientists and engineers, has become the leading medical app in over 130 countries. Sophisticated artificial intelligence technology also supports clinical decision-making and enables payers and providers to deliver quality, more effective healthcare.

4. CELLMATIQ

cellmatiq.com

Artificial intelligence for efficient medical image diagnostics Expandable artificial intelligence framework: Convolutional Neural Networks for generic structure detection. Common core (e.g. image classification, keypoint detection). Modules for specific diagnostic services.

5. UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL ESSEN

Have an Institute for Artificial Intelligence Host location of Emerging Technologies in Medicine Conference https://etim.uk-essen.de

Artificial Intelligence and Smart Hospital Summit scheduled for February 2020

Aims to bring all stakeholders to the table to define the demands of clinicians and healthcare providers, outline technical solutions and create a common understanding of the opportunities, and also the difficulties that may arise. Collaborated with Siemens Healthineers on Smart Hospital project

6. LUDWIG MAXIMILIAN UNIVERSITY MUNICH

www.en.uni-muenchen.de/index.html

The laboratory for Artificial Intelligence in Medical Imaging (AI-Med) is part of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.  Working on clinically relevant questions by using machine intelligence. Such questions include psychiatric disorders, neurodegeneration and the relationship between the brain and the rest of the body.