DIGI-B-CUBE organised the second Sectoral Workshop on October 16 in Frankfurt, Germany. The event titled ‘Tackling Innovation Barriers in Medical Diagnostics with Digital Technologies’ set the stage to discuss funded joint innovation projects between the health and IT sector. DIGI-B-CUBE partner Ci3 Cluster for Individualized Immune Intervention led the discussions on behalf of the project team. Representatives from Clinics, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and Large Enterprises came together to discuss which innovation barriers in the medical diagnostics value chain they are facing and how digital technologies can be adapted to catalyze innovation.

The main findings of these highly interactive and interesting discussions reflected that the most prevalent barrier is the lack of regulatory know how regarding certification of digital health services e.g. in respect to data safety, patient consent, data ownership, privacy etc. Also knowledge and experience regarding reimbursement strategies and requirement of payers such as health insurances is lacking. On the technological side, the participants voiced a strong interest in adopting artificial intelligence to their business models.

The project team expresses gratitude to all the participants for their active involvement and contributions in regards to the workshop. The output from this and other workshops will have a major effect on shaping the open call in DIGI-B-CUBE so that the support can be extended coherently to the deserving projects, with an overall objective to boost innovation in medical diagnostics efficiently.