All medical treatment at hospitals generates large volumes of patient data. This is usually in digital format, but is largely unstructured and cannot therefore be used for statistical analyses. Furthermore, data is spread out across various local IT systems in hospitals, even though medical practitioners urgently need it to improve patient care. Hospital operators and insurance companies also require the data to help them pick the products and treatments with optimum cost-benefit ratios. In addition, before deciding on a treatment, patients want to see reliable information on its effectiveness. The new European Medical Devices Regulation, which comes to the end of its transitional period in 2020, means that manufacturers of medical products also depend on reliable data.

KIKS (Künstliche Intelligenz für Klinische Studien – German for “Artificial Intelligence for Clinical Studies”) sets out to formulate the requirements of medical product manufacturers and hospitals for using clinical data and implement these into an innovative software package. The UNITY science platform from Leipzig-based IT company RAYLYTIC forms the basis of a digital ecosystem that links together existing applications and speeds up the development of new digital solutions. The total project volume is over EUR 15 million.

Anja Reutter, project manager at BioRegio STERN Management GmbH, which is responsible for the network management and the administrative project coordination, is delighted that KIKS won through against over 130 concept ideas in the contest: “What’s unique is that, as well as doctors and patients, manufacturers of medical products are also included. The ecosystem is set to grow on a continuous and sustained basis, which is why further partners are being sought. KIKS has the potential to revolutionise healthcare.”

Partners in the project:

• Aesculap AG, a B. Braun company
• Berlin Cert GmbH
• BioLAGO e.V.
• BioRegio STERN Management GmbH
• BIOTRONIK SE & Co. KG
• Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
• Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen
• ExB Research & Development GmbH
• HWI pharma services GmbH
• inomed Medizintechnik GmbH
• Jena University Hospital
• Medical Mountains GmbH
• RAYLYTIC GmbH
• TZM GmbH
• University Hospital Magdeburg
• University of Leipzig, Innovation Center Computer Assisted Surgery (ICCAS)
• University of Leipzig Medical Center