Collecting, evaluating and using health data is becoming increasingly important in Health Care. Digital data will become increasingly important, particularly in view of the electronic patient record (ePa) planned from 2025 and a central data access and coordination point. However, there is still a large gap here, particularly in outpatient care. Health data could be used to improve the quality and efficiency of medical care - and therefore also the treatment of patients in areas such as cancer and dementia research.
To this end, The Hochschule Niederrhein (HSNR) and six other education and healthcare partners are working on the "DIM.Ruhr" project to support (prospective) healthcare professionals and researchers in the competent and targeted handling of health data.
DIM.Ruhr stands for Datenkompetenzzentrum für die interprofessionelle Gesundheitsdatennutzung in der Metropole Ruhr. The project deliberately focuses on this region, as many outpatient and inpatient care facilities are located here. These are supported by universities and other institutions for the apprenticeship of specialists in the healthcare professions.
Together, the research team is working on three specializations: Teaching education, research and networking: Firstly, learning content is being developed to promote data skills in the healthcare professions. The materials developed are also made available to the partners for use in teaching education or continuing education.
The HSNR is actively involved here: For example, the Faculty of Health Care is creating teaching content that will be used to individually support students in the Health Care Management, Medical Informatics, Applied Therapeutic Sciences, Nursing and Applied Midwifery Science degree programs. The aim is to strengthen and expand their data skills.
Another aim of the project is to get researchers interested in the topic - for example by establishing a virtual experimentation room. At the HSNR, students evaluate data from fitness trackers as part of a ResearchThon during the campus week and explore the topics of artificial intelligence and data science.
"We have been trying to advance digitalization in Health Care for three decades. The learning content developed by DIM.RUHR will enable healthcare specialists to finally take the fast lane to digitalization," says Dr. Dr. Peter Rasche, HSNR project manager and professor of Digital Health at the Faculty of Health Care.
All partners are jointly building a health data directory. Offers and further training measures are intended to strengthen the (inter)regional networking of healthcare providers.
The project, which will run until November 2026, is being funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research with a total of 3.35 million euros from European Union funds. The HSNR will receive a share of 280,000 euros.
In addition to Witten/Herdecke University as project leader and The Hochschule Niederrhein, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, ORCA.nrw, Bochum University of Applied Sciences, the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering and the ZB MED Information Center for Life Sciences are also involved in the project.
