Patient-Centered Health Information Systems
Within the research line of
patient-centered health information systems
we offer topics for analysis, design, implementation, and evaluation in the following areas for a bachelor's, master's, diploma, or seminar thesis:
- Patient Engagement, Patient Empowerment, Shared Decision-Making
- Patient Pathways
- Patient Portals
- Health Care Networks
In the following table, you will find a selection of specific topics as well as their description. If you are interested in a topic, please contact the respective supervisor.
Artificial Intelligence for Care Pathways | |
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The use of artificial intelligence for selected tasks within healthcare is increasing in intensity, diversity, and quality. While the state of research and implementation in practice is well advanced in pioneering scenarios (e.g., radiology), process-related perspectives, among others, still offer great potential for research and innovation. Integrated care pathways (and/or patient pathways) dare the balancing act of inter-organizational process standardization and coordination and personalized medicine, both conceptually and in their IT-supported application. The Digital Health research group is looking for conceptual and prototypical approaches to synergistically combine AI methods and pathway systems. |
Rehabilitation Pathways | |
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Rehabilitation is increasingly supported by digital assistants. Parallel to this, there is a growing desire/understanding to bring process standards into integrated care as well. It should be examined to what extent the concept of the clinical pathway is suitable for the requirements of integrated care and, in particular, for the information technology support of follow-up care in the home environment. A special challenge will be the linking of daily routines and patient status with the actually sequentially designed pathway model. |
Representation of Patient Pathways | |
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Patient pathways serve as the basis for navigating patients through the care provided by an interdisciplinary team, whether in a single institution such as a hospital or in an integrated, multi-institutional care network. Conceptual pathway models help implement the processes defined in the pathway into care practice. However, their representation quickly becomes very complex and confusing for users, especially professional care providers and patients. This raises the question of how pathways can be presented in such a way that they meet the requirements of their users and can additionally serve as a practical tool for them? |
Implementation of Pathways | |
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To date, there are no uniform recommendations for the implementation of patient pathways in individual institutions or health care associations - neither is the implementation process methodically supported nor are users provided with design recommendations for defining and implementing the implementation depth suitable for their context. Against this background, we will investigate how the implementation of pathways can be supported and how the success of the implementation can be evaluated. |
Financing possibilities for patient organisations | |
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The transformation from institutional and paternalistic care to a patient-oriented perspective enables patients to become co-managers in the care process. This is also reflected in health policy and health research (macro level), where the role of patients is increasingly coming to the fore. For example, it is now obligatory for many funding bodies to have a patient representative in the project. However, in order to act as a truly independent patient organisation, it is important for them to have various funding options. In practice, this is currently problematic. The aim of this work could therefore be to show the current status quo as well as prospective financing possibilities, including their advantages and disadvantages and qualitative research. |
Standardization of the Digital Implementation of Patient Pathways | |
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In order to implement patient pathways not only at the organizational level in healthcare facilities but also to integrate them firmly into the everyday care of the service providers and patients involved, their digital implementation is necessary, for example in the form of patient portals or pathway apps. In order to prevent the emergence of a large number of individual, non-interoperable isolated solutions, standardization options should be investigated. For example, the development of design guidelines or standard profiles (e.g. FHIR) for digital patient pathway applications could be considered. All developments will be preceded by a survey of user requirements on the part of professional service providers as well as patients and their relatives. |
If you are interested, please e-mail a brief presentation of your ideas or subject interests, including your CV, to .