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Call for Papers: Scale-IT-up Workshop on Emerging Business Models in Digital Health, 2024, Rome, Italy

This workshop is in conjunction with the 17th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies – BIOSTEC 2024, 21 – 23 February 2024, Rome, Italy.

Scope
In the 21st century, we must deal with substantial health and economic burdens of non‐communicable diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer, or asthma, and common mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety. These diseases are responsible for around 70% of all deaths worldwide and are estimated to result in an economic loss of $7 trillion between 2011 and 2025. To this end, healthcare delivery must rapidly change from traditional processes to scalable digital health technologies (DHTs), such as technology-supported blended care, patient monitoring, digital diagnostics, or digital therapeutics. On the one side, hospitals and healthcare providers introduce hospital information systems, electronic health records, and telemedicine solutions for more efficient workflows within and beyond institutions. Conversely, patients may choose among digital health applications provided by wearables and smartphones, supporting their well-being and disease monitoring or self-management.

However, how sustainable and scalable digital health implementation and diffusion can be reached is not sufficiently solved. Our workshop, therefore, aims to bring together practitioners and academics to discuss emerging business models in digital health. In general, we welcome position papers (up to 8 pages) and full research papers (up to 12 papers), case studies, and best practices. The workshop includes invited talks, paper presentations, and discussions.

We are especially interested in lessons learned and perspectives from health insurance companies and how they deal with the substantial health and economic burden. To this end, we encourage academics to partner up with a representative from a health insurance company and prepare a position paper according to this format: 1. Introduction (motivation on why emerging business models in digital health are required and short background information on the health insurance company, ca. 1 page); 2. Relevant questions (please pick and answer 3-5 questions; see, for example, the questions below, ca. 2 pages); 3. Conclusion (please discuss important related work and outline key messages and next steps, ca. 1 page).

Guiding questions within the context of emerging business models in digital health include, but are not limited to:

  • How to make prevention successful?
  • How to make healthy longevity successful?
  • How to make healthy aging successful?
  • How to make elderly care successful?
  • How to cope with the economic burden of non-communicable diseases?
  • Which emerging business models in digital health are promising?
  • What needs to change in terms of regulations to make digital health successful?

The following questions may also guide position papers by co-author teams of academics and representatives from health insurance companies:

  • What is the future role of a health insurance company?
  • Which digital health technologies (DHTs) are already used and reimbursed? In which fields? What are those offerings? How are these paid for? (self-paid, basic insurance, additional insurance, etc.)
  • Are you offering DHTs? Did you develop these DHTs yourself or are you partnering with startups or other companies?
  • Do you offer DHTs rather in the prevention or in the management of diseases?
  • For which diseases do you think we need DHTs most? Why? Where do you think DHTs will work best? (what kind of disease and persona)
  • What is your main goal of offering these DHTs? (new revenue streams, cost-efficiency, customer loyalty)
  • What is the importance of business ecosystems for these DHTs?
  • What kind of learnings did you generate so far? Are there DHTs that worked better than others? Why?
  • Could you already assess the effectiveness and/or efficiency of DHTs?
  • What kind of DHTs failed? What were the reasons?
  • How would you improve DHTs you are offering?

Important Dates (to be confirmed)

  • Submission deadline: 1 November 2023
  • Notification of acceptance: 1 December 2023
  • Camera-ready papers due: 22 December 2023

Submission system: BIOSTEC

Workshop Co-Chairs

  • Dr. Kai Gand, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany
  • Dr. Mia Jovanova, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
  • Prof. Dr. Tobias Kowatsch, University of Zurich, University of St. Gallen & ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Programme Committee Members

  • Dr. Hannes Schlieter, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany
  • Dr. Jacqueline Mair, Singapore-ETH Centre, Singapore
  • Dr. Oscar Castro, Singapore-ETH Centre, Singapore
  • Odile-Florence Giger, Institute of Technology Management, University of St.Gallen, Switzerland
  • Wasu Mekniran, Institute of Technology Management, University of St.Gallen, Switzerland
  • Laura Bitomsky, School of Medicine, University of St.Gallen, Switzerland
  • Panitda Huynh, School of Medicine, University of St.Gallen, Switzerland
  • Estelle Pfitzer, MTIP, Basel, Switzerland

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