With the call for grant applications “Digital Health – The Digital Patient Journey”, Upper Austria once again raises the bar in medical technology. In all, seven projects were chosen as recipients of grants from the Upper Austrian government totalling EUR 3 million. Companies from the UAR Innovation Network are again heavily involved in the approved projects: LIFEtool is running the IntegraMouse AIR project, SCCH is involved in three projects overall and RISC Software is aiding the further development of tools for complex neurosurgery with its contributions to a project in that field.

The government of Upper Austria is actively pursuing the objective of establishing the province as an internationally recognized excellence region for applications at the human/machine interface. The benefits that these kinds of technological innovation can bring are demonstrated by the IntegraMouse Air project headed by LIFEtool gemeinnützige GmbH. Together with its partners, dieEntwickler Elektronik GmbH, Haratech GmbH and Software Competence Center Hagenberg GmbH (SCCH), development is under way on an assistance system that can be operated intuitively by a person’s mouth, allowing paraplegics to participate autonomously in social and professional life. In addition, they can effectively and individually train their respiratory musculature thanks to the support offered by artificial intelligence. For people with severe paraplegia, poor respiratory musculature poses a massive health problem and remains the most common cause of death among such patients.

SCCH is also involved in two other projects. Headed by blockhealth GmbH, the “Focus on Patient” project aims to lay the foundations of a digital system that actively involves patients in the entire treatment process. At the same time, interdisciplinary data access is planned to enable effective cooperation between doctors, therapists and carers. The aim is a holistic approach to healthcare – from prevention to therapy to aftercare. The NUDOCU project headed by Solgenium OG aims to relieve carers of time-consuming documentation tasks while at the same time increasing the quality of the information collected. This innovative approach makes use of human activity recognition (HAR) and artificial intelligence (AI). The expected result is a marked improvement in working conditions in the care professions and in tailoring care services precisely to the needs of patients.

RISC Software GmbH is participating in the ARES project as a research partner under management of eulerian-solutions e.U. With this, an already fruitful collaboration on the Medusa lighthouse project is continued. This innovation project aims to develop a software tool that supports assessment of the risk of ruptures of cerebral aneurysms by means of simulation methods. Neurosurgeons from the Kepler University Clinic are involved in the development process. Following successful conclusion of the project the tool is to become part of everyday clinical procedures.

We congratulate the research centres in the UAR Innovation Network as well as all those involved and wish them every success with implementing their projects.