Hospital of the Future

UKSH is fit for the future: With its new central clinic buildings, opening in 2019, UKSH is one of the most modern medical centers in Europe. The impressive new buildings will meet the highest standards of top university medicine. In order to effectively diagnose and treat increasingly complex disease states, the disciplines that belong together for patient care are now located in close proximity to each other. Patients can expect a light-flooded architecture that supports recovery processes - with the shortest routes to diagnostics and therapy, innovative service technologies and a high level of comfort.

UKSH plays a pioneering role in digitization in the German healthcare system. In the company study „Digital Champions 2021 - Companies with a Future“, UKSH is one of the three best digitalized hospitals in Germany and thus achieves the top position in the north. In the new buildings, UKSH‘s digitization strategy was consistently implemented to make outpatient and inpatient patient care even more effective - in an IT network that meets the highest security standards. In the same year, the news magazine „Focus“ ranked UKSH among the top 3 hospitals in Germany.

Patients experience the digital services in a variety of ways: a UKSH navigation app for iOS and Android guides users to their appointment location at UKSH - even within the hospital building. At self-check-in terminals in the hospital‘s admission areas, automatic registration via health insurance card takes just a few minutes.

In the hospital room, patients have access to the UKSH infotainment system with TV, Internet, e-paper and films in many languages via a tablet PC at their bedside. Clinical staff are supported by the bedside terminals during mobile rounds to call up findings and discuss treatment with the patient. Location-based services allow patients to move freely around the hospital buildings, with permanent monitoring of vital signs. Should an emergency occur, the patient can be precisely located. UKSH is also continuously developing apps and offering video consultations for telemedical treatment from home.

The experts at UKSH use the possibilities of digital technologies to gain new insights and make precise- ly tailored diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. The examples from clinical practice are numerous: With the help of augmented reality and robotic navigation, surgical techniques are improved. Digital and AI-supported endoscopic procedures make it possible to detect tissue changes even more precisely and earlier. Neurosurgeons use a mobile Computer-Tomograph with navigation software for highly precise and fast intraoperative image control. Cardiovascular surgeons are developing bio-bypasses from the 3D printer. In dermatology, a body scanner supports early melanoma detection. Tremor patients benefit from highly focused ultrasound. Critically located tumors are treated with robotic high-precision radiation. With each new application, the chances of curing even rare, severe and chronic diseases grow. UKSH is pursuing the goal of expanding the digital networking of medicine in the north and bringing new methods of artificial intelligence safely into clinical application - for the benefit of patients. The experts are also working on this in large collaborative projects, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi).

Many digital innovations at UKSH take place in the background. The automated unit-dose system, for example, guarantees that all medicines are compiled by the hospital pharmacy for individual patients, packaged and delivered directly to the wards. The system‘s connection to prescription software checks the medication plan for interactions. In the reprocessing unit for medical devices, UKSH relies on fully automated storage in the sterilization department - a first. Operating theater instruments and materials are assembled by autonomously operating robots on so-called trolleys according to the specific use and subject.