Robert Koch Institute and Data4Life bring digital transformation to health research
New type of cooperation between German upper-level federal agency and nonprofit organization
Potsdam, 9.12.2021. The Germany-based nonprofit health tech company Data4Life announced its cooperation with the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) today. The shared objective is to promote digital health research by, inter alia, developing new data sources and innovative research projects. The collaboration is designed to be long-term in nature and advance digital transformation decisively in the field of public health. A framework agreement was signed in November 2021 by the president of the RKI, Prof. Dr. Lothar Wieler, and Christian-Cornelius Weiß, Managing Director of Data4Life.
Data4Life now supports the RKI with data engineering expertise in the areas of data platforms, data analysis, and data security and experience in the field of research. As a federal agency in the business division of the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG), the RKI has extensive experience collecting and processing health-related data as well as interpreting and using it for action control in the public health sector.
As an initiative of the Hasso Plattner Foundation, Data4Life aims to improve health research through innovative, digital, and secure technologies. The nonprofit organization is certified by the German Federal Office for Information Security as ISO 27001 compliant on the basis of “IT-Grundschutz.” Data4Life is committed to the highest standards of information security and data protection. In addition to the Robert Koch Institute, Data4Life is already partnered with the renowned Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and various German university hospitals.
"In recent months, it has become dramatically clear that the public health sector in Germany needs to be significantly strengthened digitally in order to be prepared for the challenges of the future," said PD Cornelius Remschmidt, MD, epidemiologist and chief medical officer at Data4Life. "We are very pleased to pursue this endeavor with the RKI."
Several specific digitalization projects are already planned as part of the cooperation. Each aims to make a significant change in public health research. The collaboration will lay the foundation for modern and up-to-date research activities at the RKI and beyond, employing digital solutions and fully unlocking the potential of research data.
"With the internationally recognized Robert Koch Institute, Data4Life has found the ideal partner to make the enormous possibilities of digitalization accessible to public health research. The current pandemic in particular shows that we must not miss any opportunity here," said Dr. Rouven Westphal, board member of the Hasso Plattner Foundation.
About Data4Life
D4L data4life gGmbH is a nonprofit healthtech organization funded by the Hasso Plattner Foundation. With an international team, Data4Life is working towards its vision of a world where health data is ready for research in the areas of public health and personalized medicine to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. In pursuit of these goals, Data4Life has been collaborating since 2017 with medical experts from renowned research institutions worldwide, including various university hospitals, the Robert Koch Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, and the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institut.
Data4Life is headquartered in Potsdam, Germany with offices in Berlin and Singapore. Since July 2019, Data4Life is certified according to ISO 27001 based on the IT-Grundschutz by the German Federal Office for Information Security. More details on www.data4life.care.
