Health - Application Domains
We divide our concrete applications in health ICT-Research and -Development in the following R&D-Groups:
Interactive Systems
Every day new complex technologies conquer the market and find their place in our daily lives. The computer, for some time now, is no longer only to be found on the desk, where one can use it with mouse and a graphical user interface. The development towards mobile use in transit or for ambient embedding in the daily living environment, and the tendency for constantly growing multimedia databases demand for novel operating concepts. Therefore, the focus of our work is the research and usage of new interactive modalities, for example acoustics or haptics. Thereby, of special interest is the creation of interaction forms that also satisfy people with particular demands, for example the blind and the partially sighted.more
Data Management and Data Analysis
In health care large amounts of data accumulate, the analysis of which, within the guidelines of health research as well as health analysis, are manifold and complex. So for example, heterogeneous data is to be gathered from different data sources, formatted, presented, and evaluated for a comprehensive cancer register. Thereby, a particular role is played by the geographical reference of the data and the possibility to spontaneously phrase and execute analyses if necessary. For this reason, OFFIS develops data-security-compliant basic technologies for the integration, quality management, and further explorative analysis of data, and converts these into concrete application projects for care research – but equally for usage outside of health care. The search in unstructured, often medial data, that plays an important role especially for personal assistance functions in daily life, becomes more important. more
Integration Technologies
One key for future-proof health care lies in the support and improvement of the trans-sectoral operational procedures. It is important to guarantee the compatibility of the data for the transfer between all participating systems and actors within the health care chain. Only when the actual results of an examination are communicated directly from the hospital to the patients general practitioners, multiple medical examinations or malpractices can be avoided. To make this possible, OFFIS has engaged itself intensively in the relevant medical standards like DICOM or HL7. Equally, however, we work in this area of application on the improvement of the processes of integrated care, with the objective of bringing real relief in the operational procedures through usage of new, for example mobile, technologies. more
Medical Device Technologies
Today, modern medical devices require intelligent measuring and automation technologies, as they are long-established in industrial applications. OFFIS researches therefore, how these concrete concepts can be mapped on applications in medical technologies. The focus in the clinical environment is on assistance systems that support surgeons during complex operations in the handling of devices. Of increasing importance is also one‘s own home, that is today more and more considered a distinct habitat of health care. So, expedient medical prevention and rehabilitation measures can be relocated in one’s own home with appropriate medical devices and under remote surveillance by doctors. For this, it is essential to introduce applicable infrastructures, middleware, and gateway technologies.more
Automated Nanohandling
In many application domains robots are needed, handling the smallest objects with accuracy in the nanometer scale. Import-ant application domains are micro-system technology, nanotechnology as well as medicine technology. More
