Mount Sinai and Hasso Plattner Institute launch new institute for digital health

The Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS) and the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) today announced an affiliation that brings together industry leaders with combined expertise in health care delivery, health sciences, biomedical and digital engineering, machine learning and artificial intelligence to rapidly develop digital health products with real-time predictive and preventive capabilities that empower patients and health care providers, and improve health and health outcomes.

The newly formed Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai will be co-led by Joel Dudley, PhD, Associate Professor of Genetics and Genomics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director of Mount Sinai’s Institute for Next Generation Healthcare, and Erwin P. Bottinger, MD, Professor of Digital Health-Personalized Medicine at the Hasso Plattner Institute and Universität Potsdam, Germany, and Head of HPI’s Digital Health Center. A $15 million gift from the Hasso Plattner Foundation will establish the new Institute.

“This endeavor will usher in a new era of digital health at Mount Sinai that advances the field of precision medicine,” said Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System. “By leveraging our shared knowledge and academic excellence, Mount Sinai and HPI are positioned to find solutions that will revolutionize healthcare and science, and improve health nationally and globally.”

“This collaboration brings together two internationally renowned institutions, whose education and research programs complement each other,” said Christoph Meinel, CEO of the Hasso Plattner Institute gGmbH, and Dean of the joint Digital Engineering Faculty of Hasso Plattner Institute and Universität Potsdam . “It also lays the groundwork for new joint research projects in the area of digital health and medicine.”

With world-class expertise and complementary resources in health care, data sciences and biomedical and digital engineeting, the new Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai will conduct patient-engaged and data driven research. The longer-term goals of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai include:

• establishing an organizational framework in which researchers at HPI and Mount Sinai collaborate and co-innovate seamlessly across health care and digital engineering
• extending funding opportunities for researchers in the United States and abroad
• researching and testing prototype digital health solutions for consumers, patients, providers, and health systems in the United States, Europe, and beyond.

Both institutions have undertaken significant investments to create infrastructure and resources needed for the new Institute. Mount Sinai’s interdisciplinary expertise in genomics, big data, supercomputing, and bioinformatics; large and diverse patient population; and an ability to translate from the lab directly to the clinic, provides a foundation for the Institute. The Institute for Next Generation Healthcare (INGH), under the leadership of Dr. Dudley, has developed an integrated translational biomedical research model using advances in omics, clinical medicine, digital health, and artificial intelligence; INGH’s Lab 100 is leveraging data and technology to redesign the way health is measured and healthcare is delivered and empowering patients to track their health overtime; and the BioMe™ BioBank Program housed at the Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is enabling researchers to rapidly and efficiently conduct genetic, epidemiologic, molecular, and genomic studies on large collections of research specimens linked with electronic health records. The Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai joins over 20 institutes launched at Icahn School of Medicine.

“Investigators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Hasso Plattner Institute have been publishing ground-breaking work in the areas of genome diagnostics, precision medicine, digital health, biomedical data science, artificial intelligence and information technology,” said Dr. Dudley, Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute at Mount Sinai. “The new Digital Health Institute will serve as an opportunity to leverage our combined expertise in these areas at scale in one of the largest and most socially and economically diverse health systems in the country. We believe the HPIMS will serve to turn the promise of digital health into reality at the front lines of next-generation healthcare.”

“We know we can save lives, prevent disease, and improve the health of patients with artificial intelligence in real-time analysis of comprehensive health data from electronic health records, genetic information, and mobile sensor technologies,” said Dr. Bottinger, Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai. “With this groundbreaking new Institute, Mount Sinai and the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany, will join forces to build these cutting-edge digital health services.”

At the Hasso Plattner Institute, recently established programs like the HPI Digital Health Center (DHC) are bringing together individuals from health sciences, human sciences, data sciences, digital engineering, and society with a shared goal to improve health and wellbeing. The Center’s three divisions – Connected Health, Machine Learning in Human Health and Personalized Medicine which is directed by Bottinger – are pursuing novel methods in artificial intelligence, sensor technologies and mobile computing platforms to collect and analyze patient-generated health data. Other areas of focus include human-centered design for digital health and security and knowledge engineering.

Additional collaborations with HPS Gesundheitscloud (HPS GC) gGmbH, a not-for-profit corporation funded by the Hasso Plattner Foundation, and Smart4Health, a European Union-funded research consortium, will further strengthen the Institution’s goals to develop digital solutions that transform healthcare and improve health of patients around the globe.

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About the Hasso Plattner Institute

The Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) in Potsdam is Germany’s university center of excellence for digital engineering, advancing research and education in IT systems engineering, data engineering, cyber security, entrepreneurship, and digital health. With its bachelor’s and master’s degree programs, the Faculty of Digital Engineering, established jointly by HPI and the University of Potsdam, offers innovative engineering- and application-oriented study programs. HPI consistently earns a top-notch place in the CHE University Ranking, and conducts research noted for its high standard of excellence in digital engineering, and concentrates on the research and development of user-oriented innovations for all areas of life. PhD candidates carry out research at the HPI Research School in Potsdam and its branches in Cape Town, Haifa, Nanjing and at the recently opened office in New York. The HPI School of Design Thinking is Europe’s first innovation school for university students. With the groundbreaking, interdisciplinary HPI-Mount Sinai Digital Health Project, the Mount Sinai Health System and the HPI bring together leaders from healthcare, biomedical research, data sciences, artificial intelligence, and society, working together towards a shared goal to improve health and wellbeing.

About the Mount Sinai Health System

The Mount Sinai Health System is New York City’s largest integrated delivery system, encompassing eight hospitals, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region. Mount Sinai’s vision is to produce the safest care, the highest quality, the highest satisfaction, the best access and the best value of any health system in the nation. The Health System includes approximately 7,480 primary and specialty care physicians; 11 joint-venture ambulatory surgery centers; more than 410 ambulatory practices throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and 31 affiliated community health centers. The Icahn School of Medicine is one of three medical schools that have earned distinction by multiple indicators: ranked in the top 20 by U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Medical Schools”, aligned with a U.S. News & World Report’s “Honor Roll” Hospital, No. 12 in the nation for National Institutes of Health funding, and among the top 10 most innovative research institutions as ranked by the journal Nature in its Nature Innovation Index. This reflects a special level of excellence in education, clinical practice, and research. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 18 on U.S. News & World Report’s “Honor Roll” of top U.S. hospitals; it is one of the nation’s top 20 hospitals in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Geriatrics, Nephrology, and Neurology/Neurosurgery, and in the top 50 in six other specialties in the 2018-2019 “Best Hospitals” issue. Mount Sinai’s Kravis Children’s Hospital also is ranked nationally in five out of ten pediatric specialties by U.S. News & World Report. The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked 11th nationally for Ophthalmology and 44th for Ear, Nose, and Throat. Mount Sinai Beth Israel, Mount Sinai St. Luke’s, Mount Sinai West, and South Nassau Communities Hospital are ranked regionally.