DISTANCE:PRO – Making effective use of routine data from regional healthcare provision

Medical practices and regional hospitals are key institutions in the healthcare system and, at the same time, provide valuable data for research. The DISTANCE Digital Progress Hub has extended the research data structures of the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) to regional healthcare facilities. The Digital Progress Hub DISTANCE:PRO was launched on 1 October 2025 as a follow-up project to DISTANCE. The aim is to further develop the research data structures established there for regional healthcare and to establish them on a sustainable basis.

In DISTANCE:PRO, the infrastructure developed in DISTANCE is being expanded to include external data integration centres (XTDIZ), similar to the data integration centres at MII’s university medical centres. This enables regional healthcare data to be aggregated and harmonised in compliance with data protection regulations, and utilised for digital applications, AI models and research. In addition, telemedicine and wearables are being integrated to enable continuous, digital care.

The app used in DISTANCE:PRO is designed to incorporate feedback from previous users of the PICOS app and to provide patients with a clear overview of their overall health history. The plan is to involve at least 300 people: 200 participants will record their health status using an app and a wearable device, whilst a further 100 will serve as a control group. Data collected will include physical activity, sleep, pain levels and psychological stress. The study aims to quantify potential improvements in quality of life resulting from the use of digital applications, whilst also testing the performance of the new data infrastructure under real-world conditions.