© BMBF
Cluster „Zukunft der Pflege“
Ensuring that people receive nursing care is one of the greatest challenges facing our society. Every day, several million people in Germany are dependent on nursing care. And the number of people in need of nursing care will continue to rise. This poses new challenges for hospitals and rehabilitation centres, inpatient and outpatient care facilities and nursing care in people’s own homes. Intensive and palliative nursing care can also be supported and strengthened in this way.
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) supports the development and research of technological innovations in this area. As part of the ‘Zukunft der Pflege’ research cluster, social and technological innovations in nursing care are being brought together: research, industry and nursing care practitioners are working together with users to develop new solutions that will facilitate and improve everyday nursing care in Germany.
As the first component of the cluster, a Care Innovation Centre (PIZ), the only one of its kind in Germany to date, began its work in June 2017. Here, engineers research innovative technologies together with nursing scientists. Since the beginning of 2018, there have been nursing practice centres (PPZ) in Freiburg, Nuremberg, Berlin and Hanover, where new nursing technologies are tested in everyday nursing care. The four centres test the practical suitability of various technologies in clinical, inpatient and outpatient care settings. The PPCs also pass on their expertise in training and further education, thereby ensuring the innovative strength of the industry.
In mid-2024, a further development took place: the ‘Zukunft der Pflege’ cluster became the ‘Zukunft der Pflege 2.0’ cluster. This expands the cluster’s central tasks, which previously centred on the development and practical testing of new technologies, to include the dissemination of such technologies in a wide range of nursing care fields. As a joint transfer and innovation hub, the knowledge gained is to be made accessible to a wide audience and external impulses are to be taken up – because many of the technologies developed still do not find their way into nursing care practice. To this end, we offer the annual cluster conference and other interactive exchange formats, for example. This is intended to further advance the digital transformation in nursing care.
As part of the further development of the ‘Future of Care 2.0’ cluster, we are looking for various practical facilities that are interested in working closely with us and would like to introduce and use innovative, technical products in their facilities with scientific support. If you are interested, you can send us your contact details here.