Susanne Rödel

Mr Spahn is stepping on the gas! The DVG creates important conditions for the promotion and professionalisation of digital medicine in Germany. Much of this is to be implemented as early as 2020. A brief overview and commentary.

People between 30 and 60 feel highly responsible for their parents' health, influence their adherence to therapy and are involved in purchasing and therapy decisions. These results of our market research study point to an important target group for communication measures: the relatives.

These were the questions addressed by a large-scale nationwide e-patient survey. The results are fresh in the inbox. As Spirit Link Medical is one of the sponsors of the study, I can offer you some exclusive insights.

A successful classic has come of age and is now getting six successors: HopeLab launched Re-Mission 2 two months ago - six web-based mini-games that help children and young people in their fight against cancer.

There is now a plethora of digital offerings that aim to motivate patients to be more compliant with their therapies or all of us to lead healthier lifestyles. But do they actually deliver what they promise? Here are some examples of projects for which "numbers" have already been published.

Since many people are now used to exchanging information on the social web, it makes sense to also use this communication channel to promote adherence. Various scenarios are conceivable - I will present some examples today.

When hearing impaired people get a new hearing aid, they first have to train hearing with the device and adapt the device to their individual hearing ability. To support this process, we have developed digital hearing aid training.

In the article "Compliance was yesterday..." we explained the term "adherence". Now we move from theory to practice: we describe adherence-promoting measures directed at patients and, in a series of several articles, present some examples from the digital world that could, for example, be part of a patient care programme / compliance programme.

Some pharmaceutical companies still shy away from offering forums for their customer groups (e.g. patients, doctors). Among the arguments used to justify this scepticism is, for example, this: "There would certainly be a lot of side effects described. Our drug safety department would have a lot of work to do". Really?

Whether before or after a visit to the doctor - today almost everyone researches diseases, symptoms and health tips on the internet. You can always find what you are looking for: there are thousands of websites with medical content. But which information is the right one? Especially for laypeople, it is difficult to assess whether the information offered is serious, i.e. correct and comprehensive. [...]