[Real-world testing of digital health: the INSPIRE Living Lab : An interdisciplinary clinical innovation platform].

BACKGROUND

Digitalization in healthcare offers great potential for improving the quality of care and efficiency but often fails due to the lack of transferability of innovative solutions into clinical routine. This is especially true in orthopedics and trauma surgery, where complex workflows lack realistic test environments for digital technologies.

OBJECTIVES

How can a structured real-world laboratory support and accelerate the participatory development, testing, and implementation of digital assistance systems in everyday clinical practice?

MATERIAL: The INSPIRE Living Lab is a structurally and digitally modernized hospital ward with 22 beds at University Medicine Heidelberg/Mannheim GmbH. It serves as an integrated testing environment for medical technology innovations under real-world care conditions.

METHODS

Through an interdisciplinary and multiprofessional setup, digital technologies such as AI-supported medical report systems, smart communication solutions (e.g., Cliniserve), and radar-based fall prevention systems are tested, evaluated, and further developed in close collaboration with startups and clinical staff. In addition, qualitative and quantitative research elements-such as mixed-methods analyses in the nursing field-are employed.

RESULTS

The projects demonstrate high acceptance, significant efficiency gains (e.g., reduced walking distances through Cliniserve), and valuable feedback for product development. The ward also functions as a multiplier for other hospital departments and as a strategic pilot environment for future construction and digitalization projects.

CONCLUSION

The INSPIRE Living Lab represents a pioneering infrastructure for realistically testing digital innovations and transferring them into routine care in a system-compatible way. It combines healthcare delivery, research, startup support, and technology development into a regionally and nationally relevant model of clinical digitalization.