ERFURT_ At the end of April, Berlin invites to Europe's leading event for digital healthcare – and Thuringia shows its trump cards there. The trade fair is called DMEA, where decision-makers from all areas of healthcare will meet from April 25 to 27. Nine companies, research institutions and agencies from the Free State form the Thuringian joint stand here. "At our first appearance at DMEA last year, there were five exhibitors – it is pleasing that more and more players from Thuringia are taking advantage of the trade fair offer," says Sabine Wosche, Managing Director of LEG. "We want to make the performance of the Thuringian health economy visible at DMEA and use the opportunity to exchange ideas and network with companies and research institutes from other regions."
The LEG organizes the joint stand. There are many forward-looking topics with which the Thuringian exhibitors can score points. For example, progress in building the digital rescue chain, a project within the framework of the Thuringian digital strategy, is presented. Among other things, this is about ensuring that, during rescue operations, for example after accidents, patient data flows comprehensively and quickly from the ambulance to the hospital that is intended to admit the accident victim. Another project involving several Thuringian stakeholders is intelligent sensor-based telemedicine – without patients having to visit the doctor's practice or the staff having to come to households from there, data such as blood oxygen saturation or data for a meaningful heart rhythm analysis can be transmitted using optical sensors or special apps: The patient collects the data at home and the doctor in the practice or clinic evaluates it. Life-threatening and time-critical diseases such as heart attacks and strokes can also be treated in real time with the help of telemedicine approaches.
Projects like this thrive on the collaboration of a wide variety of Thuringian companies and research institutes. Accordingly, many activities are bundled by the LEG team “Thuringian Cluster Management“ (ThCM), which also fulfills the tasks of the office of the Thuringian Innovation Strategy (RIS). It was a series of workshops by the ThCM entitled “Digital Health“, which, starting in 2016, brought together many Thuringian stakeholders and also initiated the plan to present a Thuringian joint booth at DMEA. The choice fell on DMEA because it is Europe's central meeting point for digital health, the digital health economy – here doctors, managers from hospitals and care facilities, as well as experts from politics, science, and research come together. Last year, an increase in visitors was achieved, with more than 11,000 trade visitors coming to the Berlin exhibition grounds. The organizer of DMEA is the Federal Association for Health IT – bvitg e. V. This year's focus is on “Young Talent and Career“, and Thuringia takes this into account by having the “Thuringian Agency For Skilled Worker Recruitment“ (ThAFF), based at LEG, represented at the joint booth of the Free State.
In addition to the ThAFF, the following eight exhibitors are present at the Thuringian joint stand:
- Takwa GmbH
- DECKEL MAHO Seebach GmbH
- MEYTEC JENA GmbH
- Wecare Agency
- Textile Research Institute Thuringia-Vogtland e. V. – TITV Greiz
- Nanozoo GmbH
- Preventicus GmbH
- Friedrich Schiller University Jena, eHealth and Communication
