What current digitalization projects are in focus at the Faculty of Medicine?
We are currently working on three central digitalization projects. The first involves the establishment of a new user management system, which is essential for the integration of future services. Second, we are expanding our data storage infrastructure, currently three petabytes in size, but which we aim to scale up to as much as ten petabytes in the coming years. Third, we are setting up a new cluster of high-performance PCs for use in complex data analysis. Part of that process involves addressing data privacy concerns and the need for secure processing of research data.
What differentiates the Faculty of Medicine from other faculties when it comes to digitalization?
One major difference is that our research and teaching run alongside a fully functional hospital, with its own IT infrastructure and computing center. As such, we have separate IT structures for administration and patient care. These belong to the KRITIS infrastructure, meaning that they are used for research but also ensure absolute data privacy for patients. In addition, the researchers are linked to University IT services.
And finally, we work closely with the other “Digis” across the University, especially in the development of digital tools and systems that could be of use to other faculties. This includes, for example, our examination management system UCAN, which allows for direct electronic composition of written examinations. In addition, the faculty is introducing new software for creating course schedules, which is urgently needed due to the large and complex degree programs involved. That software might be of interest to other faculties and degree programs as well. These are precisely the kind of discussions that we digitalization officers are having—even though we in the Faculty of Medicine are granted somewhat greater autonomy in the introduction of systems.
What are the biggest challenges?
The biggest challenge is in making clinical data available for research, especially within the context of artificial intelligence. We are faced with legal and ethical considerations, such as patient consent. Beyond that, we have to decide whether we want to continue running our own operations or whether we should use a cloud service provider for data analysis. It’s likely that many of these issues can be better addressed once a University-wide cloud strategy is in place.
What’s important is that we listen to employee feedback during roll-out. Digitalization doesn’t work when you try it top down. The first step is to get people invested, because then they’ll find the motivation to learn about the technology. In the clinic, we’ve also been at the forefront of the electronic patient records movement. Not only do most of the physicians, but also the nursing staff, have an iPad Mini in the pocket of their scrubs. What we learned is that the software wasn’t actually performing very well because we could only download a limited number of cases. But you only find out about these things, let alone can work to correct them, if you listen to the feedback.