On October 4, 2017, the first Digital Health Accelerator of Berlin Health Innovations, the joint technology transfer unit of BIH and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, officially launched the first round of its program with three teams and around 25 people. The interdisciplinary teams from Charité develop digital health solutions in the fields of image and big data analysis for personalized medicine, stroke prediction and early detection of incidents in the intensive care unit

The three groups have the opportunity to further develop their projects in a co-working space on the premises of the BIH in Anna-Louisa-Karsch-Straße. Here they receive intensive coaching and mentoring for a period of time, including the areas of data science, patient-oriented product development, design and development of business models. In addition, the program also includes support for knowledge transfer, start-up advice, networking with researchers and founders as well as in selected cases the validation of product benefits for patients.

Scientific focus of the first projects

Artificial intelligence in radiology

The team led by Professor Marc Dewey uses artificial intelligence to analyze radiological image data. The aim is to identify the disease of coronary arteries in patients, to identify individual treatment differences and to optimize treatment procedures.

Better stroke prediction

Dr. Dietmar Frey and his team are developing a stroke prognosis simulation program with the aim of providing optimal treatment strategies for stroke prevention.

Patient care improvement in intensive care units

Dr. Alexander Meyer and his team want to improve the early detection of postoperative incidents in patients in the intensive care unit. Their development shall help to proactively prevent emergencies.

“The Digital Health Accelerator from Berlin Health Innovations is a key instrument of our ambitious technology transfer concept. Our goal is to strengthen the digital health community in Berlin and the region with numerous activities to support the transfer of digital health innovations into applications. Ultimately, we want to increase the benefit of such applications for patients and society,” said Dr. Rolf Zettl, Member of the BIH Executive Board and responsible for Berlin Health Innovations.

The core topics of the Accelerator program are prevention approaches, diagnostics (e. g. telemedicine or nanosensors), therapies (e. g. better treatment of patients with chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes), patient-relevant process improvements as well as cross-segment solutions that evaluate existing clinical data sets and further develop findings on diagnostic or therapeutic approaches.

The first teams were identified and selected in the spring, and the co-working infrastructure has been in place since the summer. The program lead to a “Demo Day” at the beginning of 2018, in which the resulting digital health solutions and their business models are presented, for example, in order to secure external funding

Digital Health Community building also takes place as part of the regular meetings of interested parties from Charité and externals as part of the “BIH Charité Digital Health Roundtable”. The next date: October 20, 2017. More information

Save the date: The “Hacking Health Hackathon powered by Berlin Health Innovations” will take place in Berlin from December, 1–3, 2017.