Scope of the workshop

The workshop will focus on three primary topics that have emerged from previous versions of this workshop. Data collection: Data is the basis of all services. We must make sure that meaningful data can be collected by everybody and over long periods of time, for use in personal health as well as on a population level. Interdisciplinary research: Technology for health is inherently interdisciplinary. Research in this field must therefore also be interdisciplinary, opening new opportunities, but also raising new challenges. Grand challenges: As a highly interdisciplinary and novel field of work, many challenges go beyond what the individual researcher can tackle. These require a broad discussion in the research community, but also in other research fields, and ultimately in society and politics We address six central themes to tackle these challenges:

  • Devices and sensors: What rich multimedia data can we acquire today, using dedicated wearables, general multimedia devices such as smartphones or cameras, or unrelated third-party sources? Which new sensors and devices are imaginable and will provide new data in the future? Which standards are available or must be developed to ensure general and easy access to all data?
  • Big data: How can we gain personal insights from collected media data? How can we extract valuable information for large populations out of the personal data of millions of users?
  • Open datasets: How can we collect open datasets of annotated long-term data that could be used for benchmarking and large-scale studies in health?
  • Stakeholder involvement: How can relevant stakeholders (both institutions and people) such as healthcare professionals, governments, companies, as well as individuals and their personal relations such as family, friends and the social networks be involved in the design of next generation health systems?
  • Interdisciplinarity: How can the different disciplines such as computer science, psychology, medicine, social sciences, or economics, to name just a few, collaborate fruitfully yet efficiently in research projects to develop sustainable next-generation health systems?
  • Legal & Ethical Issues: How do we deal with legal issues, such as the patient’s right for data privacy versus the public interest in large-scale health data? What restrictions are imposed on research and development by legal frameworks e.g. on medical device regulations? How much can be collected and in what format?