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 organization with around 100 employees at locations in Europe and Singapore, funded by the Hasso Plattner Foundation. By developing and operating an IT infrastructure for the secure provision ("data donation"), analysis and management of healthcare data, and by applying algorithms to research diseases and evaluate treatment methods, Data4Life aims to help improve health research. Data4Life was certified in July 2019 in accordance with ISO 27001 under the IT-Grundschutz by the German Federal Office for Information Security. D4L data4life gGmbH was founded at the end of 2017 and is headquartered in Potsdam, Germany. The managing director is Christian-Cornelius Weiß. For more information, visit www.data4life.care.
Press Contact
Konstanze Pflueger
Phone: +49 162 27 29 163
E-mail: media@data4life.care
D4L data4life gGmbH
c/o Digital Health Center (DHC) im Hasso-Plattner-Institut (HPI)
Rudolf-Breitscheid-Straße 187
14482 Potsdam, Germany
