Nursing Practice Center Nuremberg

Several million people in Germany depend on care every day. And the number of people in need of care continues to rise. The possibilities of digitization and mechanization as an opportunity and solution have therefore also been discussed in the care industry for a long time. In 2017, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) started the “Future of Care” cluster, in which four nursing practice centers (PPZ) in Hanover, Freiburg, Nuremberg and Berlin work together with the nursing innovation center (PIZ). The BMBF is providing a total of 20 million euros nationwide for this issue up to 2022.

For the PPZ-Nuremberg, six facilities in the Nuremberg metropolitan region have come together under the coordination of the municipal care facility NürnbergStift in order to make the integration of future technologies in care more gentle for patients and caregivers and more efficient overall. For this purpose, innovative care technologies are tested in the facilities operated by the Diakonie Neuendettelsau, the NürnbergStift and the Klinikum Nürnberg for practicality, acceptance by the nursing staff and those cared for and benefits in real operation. Three test projects on the topics of “sensor technology against the risk of dehydration”, “virtual reality as an entertainment program for people in nursing homes” and “app-based multilingual communication for patients with a migration background” are already in preparation. The scientific and methodological monitoring of the tests is carried out by the IREM – Institute for Rescue Services, Emergency and Disaster Management at the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt and the IDC Research Institute at the Wilhelm Löhe University (WLH) for Applied Sciences in Fürth. It is also their task to regularly integrate the knowledge gained in the PPZ into nursing education, training and further education in order to make the tested innovations tangible and learnable and to promote the technical skills required for application. The sixth partner in the consortium, Forum MedTech Pharma e.V., supports the transfer of knowledge into practice through its extensive network. In addition, it promotes the publication and establishment of the PPZ business model in the care industry.

The PPZ-Nuremberg project is scheduled to last five years and will run from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2022. The costs of around four million euros will be borne 100 percent by the BMBF.

Course for success: from a group of experts to a research project

In 2015, the Forum MedTech Pharma e.V., whose office is Bavaria Innovativ, created the “Care Innovation” expert group, which consists of clinics, care facilities, companies and research institutions. At the regular meetings, topics such as “Technology and digitization in care”, “Consideration of supply chain and interface management”, “Patient-oriented care” and the topic “Specialists & training and further education” were discussed. This led to a close, interdisciplinary and intensive exchange of experience and the realization of joint projects. After the Forum MedTech Pharma e.V., together with the other consortium partners, recognized the BMBF tender “Future of care: human-technology interaction for practice” as an ideal framework to continue and consolidate the common goals of the cooperation, Bayern Innovativ established contact with the Bavarian Research Alliance (BayFOR). This supported the consortium of the PPZ Nuremberg project in the successful application. In addition to valuable information on the funding conditions of the BMBF, BayFOR provided assistance with the development and presentation of the project concept in the application and advised the consortium members on formulating the application text.