Jochen Werner first made Essen University Hospital smart, now it’s going to go green. For the professor and medical influencer, it’s not just about sustainability, but also about prevention. The acquisition of precise data is essential for the transformation.
Healthcare accounts for 4.4 percent of global CO2 emissions. That’s what the organization “Health Care Without Harm” calculated. “We have to say for ourselves that we don’t even know many numbers,” admits Jochen Werner. The professor is head of the University Hospital in Essen.
With the “Green Hospital” initiative, his house should also become sustainable and climate-friendly. How high is the electricity consumption or how is the amount of waste developing? The doctor explains in the ntv podcast “So techt Deutschland” that this is data that has to be recorded and analyzed. “We can no longer orientate ourselves on lists. We need hard data. That’s why digitization is essential for the transformation towards a green hospital.
Jochen Werner has been Medical Director and Chairman of the Board of the University Hospital Essen since 2015.
(Photo: imago images/Future Image)
In a hospital, the priority is to treat and heal people. But Werner thinks that the range of tasks is growing. “It’s also about taking care of prevention or doing everything we can to ensure that diseases break out as late as possible.” The environment is an important factor for this, after all it is known “that you can only really recover in a healthy, undisturbed environment.”
Lectures with avatars
Various technologies are used in Essen to save CO2 and to use the advantages of digitization for medical treatment. One example is artificial intelligence, which is of course already used in various examinations, says the head of the university hospital, and adds: “We also avatarize part of our hospital, including certain examination rooms, in order to hold lectures and conferences there.”
Even the head of the clinic himself is already on the move as an avatar in the clinic’s own metaverse. Jochen Werner reports in the new episode of “So techt Deutschland” what advantages this has and what goals the University Hospital Essen still has with the Green Hospital.
In “So techt Deutschland” the ntv moderators Frauke Holzmeier and Andreas Laukat ask founders, investors, politicians and entrepreneurs how things are with Germany as a technology location. All episodes can be found in the ntv app, at AudioNow, Apple Podcastsand Spotify. Also at Amazon Music and Google Podcasts you will find it.