DigiHealthDay-2022 exceeds all expectations

19.12.2022 | THD-Pressestelle

This year’s third edition of the DigiHealthDay (DHD) series received a total of 1.000 registrations from 100 nations around the world and brought together more than 400 people on-site and online, including ten keynote speakers, prominent dignitaries, experts, students, and digital health enthusiasts, exceeding by far any other event held so far at the European Campus Rottal-Inn (ECRI), a faculty of the Deggendorf Institute of Technology (DIT).

The international scientific symposium kick-started with an inspiring opening session featuring welcome addresses by Honorable Klaus Holetschek, the Bavarian State Minister of Health and Care; Wolfgang Beißmann, the Mayor of Pfarrkirchen; Prof. Dr. Horst Kunhardt, the Scientific Chair of DHD, DIT's Vice-President and Founding Director of ECRI; Prof. Dr.Dipak Kalra, the Invited International Chair of DHD; Dr. Ryan Dos Santos, the Digital Health Officer at WHO Europe Office; and Prof. Dr. Yunkap Kwankam, the Executive Director of the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH).

The DHD-2022 not only wrapped together two plenary sessions and three parallel sessions, but culminated in the enrichening and enlightening panel discussion. The discussion titled “DigiHealth-AI Quo Vadis: How to Make Healthcare AI Safe, Efficient, Ethical, Explainable, and Accountable?” was professionally moderated by Prof. Dr. Georgi Chaltikyan, Chief Organiser of the DHD-2022. Lively, interactive, and stimulating, the panel attracted much interest by all the attendees, provided a logical conclusion of what the organisers describe as a “360 Degree Immersive Digital Health Experience”, and set the stage for the next edition of the symposium, the DigiHealthDay-2023, traditionally scheduled on the second Friday in November next year.

The breakthrough moment of this year’s DHD has been the in-person visit of five speakers from three continents, including renowned global digital health leaders and academics such as Prof. Rajendra Pratap Gupta from India, Dr. Anne Snowdon from Canada, and Prof. Martin Gerdes from Norway. An opportunity to meet several of the world’s top-ranked experts in-person, to hear and learn from them, to interact with them in and out of the conference rooms, and to even plan future joint projects, was tremendously appreciated by the on-site attendees, and in particular, by the Digital Health students and young professionals at DIT-ECRI, for many of whom this was the very first live exposure to the global digital health community. In turn, speakers and guests highly acclaimed the young, diverse, vibrant and dynamic DigiHealth family in Pfarrkirchen, and unanimously called it one of the most devoted, attractive, inspiring, and energising communities of future Digital Health leaders they have ever met.

Another important feature in this turbulent time, has been the visit of a delegation from the partner university in Ukraine, the National Healthcare University in Kyiv, lead by Prof. Dr. Ozar Mintser, one of the pioneers of medical informatics in Eastern Europe, who have made it all the way from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv to Pfarrkirchen, to contribute to the DHD-2022.

The event ended in the evening with a delightful after-event reception, the “DigiHealthEvening”, that provided the on-site community within the DigiHealth-DIT-ECRI family an ambiance for networking, enjoyment, and celebration with awards, drinks, snacks, music, and many beautiful surprises. The positive vibes sent by the DHD continue reverberating even weeks post-event as witnessed by the overwhelmingly positive feedback and testimonials that the organiwsers are still receiving.

The DHD-2022 was kindly supported by its sponsors SHL Telemedizin GmbH, the Premier Sponsor, and ITD GmbH. The following partners also contributed to the great event: Bavarian State Ministry of Health and Care (StMGP), Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH), Consortium of Educational Institutions in Digital Health (CONEDIG), International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA), European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI), German Society of Digital Medicine (DGDM), German Telemedicine Society (DGTelemed), Bavarian Telemedicine Alliance (BTA), Armenian Association of Digital Health (AADH), District Rottal-Inn, and City of Pfarrkirchen. As partner universities DHD is glad to have had the Russian-Armenian University (RAU), the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN) and Shupyk National Healthcare University of Ukraine (Shupyk NHU of Ukraine) on its side. DigitalHealthNews.eu contributed to the big event as DHD’s media partner. The Munich Digital Health Summit teamed up with DHD-2022 and supported the symposium as a partner event. The DHD-2022 has the Journal of Applied Interdisciplinary Research (JAIR) and the Ukrainian Journal of Medical Informatics and Engineering as its publication partners.

Bild (ECRI/THD): The on-site attendees of the DHD-2022 during the event at the European Campus Rottal-Inn.