Digital Transformation and Innovation

Digitalization plays an increasingly important role for Fresenius – whether in healthcare facilities, in direct contact with patients, or in production. It is a driving force behind the implementation of innovative technologies and treatment concepts and can help us to find solutions to many challenges in the healthcare sector and help unlock trapped value. For us, the focus is on the opportunities offered by digital solutions. Through innovative, safe, and user-friendly products and systems, we can further improve the quality and efficiency of treatments.

Digital trends

Our markets are changing rapidly. This is particularly true with regard to digital trends in healthcare, which have been further accelerated by COVID-19. We are seeing increasing demand from patients, health insurance companies, and healthcare institutions for new digital services along the entire value chain. Patients want remote treatment and on-demand healthcare services. Data-driven decision-making is becoming increasingly important, for example in predictive maintenance of dialysis machines and analysis of patient data. At the same time, cybersecurity risks have made us aware of the need for standardized and resilient IT infrastructures.

Digitalization and innovation

In order to drive digitalization and innovation at Fresenius and at the same time take into account the specific market situations, we take different approaches in the business segments – from independent Research and Development (R & D) strategies to active innovation management. We also involve external partners such as research institutions and start-up companies in this work. 

One of our priorities is developing innovative products that not only meet stringent quality requirements, but also affordability criteria. In doing so, we are responding to the growing demand worldwide for high-quality yet cost-effective products and outcome-based services.

Many of our stakeholders, especially our patients and our employees, are directly affected by the changes resulting from the advance of digitalization. Our R & D activities are closely linked to digitalization and are an integral part of our growth strategy. Our aim here is to improve products and processes as well as to develop innovative therapies and integrated healthcare services. However, we do not conduct fundamental research.