Claudia Dirks was Editor-in-Chief of kma (Thieme) and moved to the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) as Director Media DACH. She conceived and established “42 – The Journal for the German, Austrian and Swiss Healthcare IT Industry”, one of the most prestigious magazines in the German speaking region. Furthermore, she was in charge for concept and development of the programs of the ehealthsummits in DE, AT and CH. Most recently, she was responsible for strategic communications at Meierhofer AG. Her approach: independent translation work between users and solution. IT is not an end in itself. IT provides the basis for the family doctor-patient-specialist-family members-healthcare facility debate, and this debate needs to be improved!

Until recently, Dr. Henrik Matthies was managing director of Berlin-based Mimi Hearing Technologies GmbH. In this role, he developed digital prevention solutions for the sensory organ ear. He brings almost 15 years of technology and innovation experience to the hub. Mimi was one of the first digital health providers to certify its technology as a medical device in Europe, and together with Barmer, it built Germany’s most successful digital prevention project. In 2018 and 2019 Mimi won the CES Innovation Award in Las Vegas.

Dr. med. Kai U. Heitmann is our Mr. Interoperability. Communication, standardization and integration are his hobby-horses, which he has been cultivating for more than 20 years. His expertise with regards to the family of HL7 (Health Level Seven) standards v2, CDA® and FHIR® is known beyond the borders of the German healthcare system. Various European integration projects bear his signature, in which he was responsible for the creation of specifications based on eHealth standards as well as for implementation and testing up to the production environment. Numerous research projects in the health care sector count on his expertise and also benefit from his medical knowledge when creating technical-informatic standard specifications.

After interdisciplinary studies of economic (LL.B.) and social law (LL.M.) at the University of Kassel with stations at Linköpings and Koç University (Sweden/Turkey), Jan Brönneke decided to do further research in the law of statutory health insurance. Here, he was primarily involved in the SFB 597 with method evaluation by the G-BA. This was followed by a period as a lecturer at the G-BA; searching for new perspectives, he joined the interdisciplinary health consulting firm Dierks+Company as Legal Manager. Expertise, drive and search for solutions led him to the interface perspective of the hih.

Supporting strategic digital projects is her core business – in doing so, Denitza Larsen takes the view of the user, drawing on her expertise to sharpen the contours of the many projects that land on the hih’s desk. She was trained as a Usability & UX Professional at artop – an institute at Berlin’s Humboldt University with the unique selling point of having one of the most interdisciplinary exchanges around digitalisation trends and innovation methods.

As an attorney, Dr. jur. Philipp Kircher has been focusing on cross-sectional issues of medical, health insurance and data protection law since 2016 in order to develop legal solutions in the field of digital health. After completing his doctorate on health data protection law and a stint at the Berlin health law firm Dierks+Bohle, he was most recently employed in the Digital Health Practice Group of Dierks+Company Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH. Here, his central task was to provide legal advice to providers of patient-oriented innovations in healthcare and life sciences and to develop concrete proposals for new ways of accessing the SHI system with digital health applications.

Ralf König studied Pharmacy in Erlangen and Health Care Management in Bayreuth. In addition to his work in the pharmacy, he has long been intensively engaged in the potential of digitalization in drug safety and interdisciplinary networking in medication management. In 2013, he first developed a central, intersectoral medication server within the framework of funded projects, and later developed an award-winning digital solution to support the local pharmacy in the digital change in retail.

Ralf König manages pharmacies in Nuremberg in the 3rd generation and is a member of the advisory board at the University of Applied Sciences OTH Amberg-Weiden – study course “Digital Healthcare Management”.