Dear GMDS members,

we are excited to announce that the XtraTracks lecture series 2025 is now underway! 

The XtraTracks lecture series (www.xtratracks.com) will provide an overview over current telemedical, eHealth and / or AI activities with a special focus on Germany and Canada. All lecturers are international experts in their various fields of research. There will also be enough time for discussion with the lecturers and other participants. We encourage everyone with an interest in these topics to register and participate in this lecture series. If you have a medical and / or IT-background, you are very welcome regardless if you are a professional or a student! Participants can get a CME-certification (2 points for each lecture) from our physicians association (Ärztekammer Westfalen-Lippe).

Next lecture - Provincial Virtual Care for Addressing Patient Emergencies at Their Finger Tips: the BC 811 Experience
Speaker: Kendall Ho
Wednesday, May 14 · 4 - 5:30pm CEST

Emergency Department (ED) overcrowding is a global phenomenon, resulting in admitted patients in the ED, and new patients waiting in the ED waiting rooms to be seen. Meanwhile, a significant portion of these patients in the waiting room could potentially be managed away from ED. How can telehealth and digital health assist in decongesting ED and support patients at their times of urgent needs? In Germany, 116 117 is designed to tackle this issue. This presentation will discuss about the Canadian approach through the lens of the province of British Columbia and its 8-1-1 virtual service. This pan-provincial digital front door aspires to improve patient experiences, reduce ED input volume, and improve patient safety through their health system journeys for optimizing patients and health system’s outcome. We will discuss the evidence to date on this 8-1-1 virtual care service, and how it integrates with the health system as a whole to alleviate the ED crisis in BC, and this line’s future directions. We will then explore opportunities of synergy between Germany and Canada in our respective contexts.

Detailed information about the speakers can be accessed by clicking on the respective lecture titles.