From the single organ to a complete twin
Following research on individual organs as virtual maps, the focus of course has long been shifting towards the “whole”; in other words, the complete virtual mapping of a human being. And in the person of Prof. Dr Gerald Urban, of the Department of Microsystems Engineering IMTEK at Freiburg University, the MHIF will be welcoming a speaker who intends to realize just these dreams. IMTEK is one of the supporters of the European research initiative “DigiTwins”.

Comprising more than 200 partners from industry, economy, and clinical research in 32 countries, this community is working towards establishing a personal digital twin for each and every European citizen. It intends to revolutionize the health care sector and biomedical research for the benefit of the citizens and society and, by creating digital twins, to afford a contribution to the European strategy for a digital domestic market. This intended target may be seen as overly ambitious. For, with respect to Germany, it is not even clear at present which of a patient’s data at all should be integrated in his electronic file, not to mention the data protection aspects. Such projects depend crucially on adequately large quantities of reliable data to feed the artificial intelligence.

So will there be now fake data after fake news?
Against this background, Alexandra Ebert’s presentation in the afternoon panel at MEDICA HEALTH IT FORUM is expected to rivet the attention on 19 November. Ebert works for the startup mostly.ai. This company’s synthetic data engine “GENERATE” is designed to generate an unlimited number of highly realistic and representative synthetic customers that correspond to the patterns and behaviors of actual customers on a hitherto unparalleled level. This data engine, therefore, analyses customer data to generate anonymized, synthetic data for the properties and activities of real people — but no longer traceable and therefore in no need of data protection. Yet, can such systematically generated fake data be implemented meaningfully in health care? This question will be discussed at the MHIF at MEDICA 2019.

In the meantime, Ibo Teuber will be demonstrating what the health care sector thinks of digital twins. He is the Health Care Director at the corporate consultants Deloitte. In a study, Deloitte promoted the vision of a supra platform for unlimited networking, based on the Internet of Things (IoT). To date, though, it admits that the highly fragmentary IoT ecosystem with its separate applications and numerous closed platforms hinders comprehensive interoperability. The setup of a universal, open supra platform could in future create the basic requirements for real, digital value creation — and here, the health care field would be one of many. The MEDICA HEALTH IT FORUM will be casting light on the many and varied aspects and the challenges offered by digital twins in the health care sector.

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