When Julian Hugo was in Scotland for an internship during his medical studies, he realized once again how cumbersome the processes in clinics are.

Anyone who wanted to register for an examination using computer tomography in the Scottish hospital first had to fill out a form by hand on the ward.

Then interns like him ran to the radiologist in the basement and brought him the registration.

Slow analogue paths instead of faster digital ones - Julian Hugo also experienced this at other practice stations in Switzerland, Spain, Peru and Germany.

It became increasingly clear to him: "The potential for digitization in medicine is huge."

Hugo had been interested in computer science since school.

After studying medicine, he is now completing the "Digital Health" master's program at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam - and thus belongs to a group of future specialists who are in great demand.

"The demand for experts who work at the interface between health and digital has tripled in the past few years," says Hannes Sommer, Managing Director of Sinceritas.

In addition to clinics and start-ups, pharmaceutical and medical technology companies, consultancies and manufacturers of clinic software were also desperately looking for staff.

A central driver for the growing demand for digital health professionals in Germany is the Hospital Future Act.

The federal government is providing 3 billion euros for the digitization of clinics, the federal states are adding 1.3 billion euros.

Among other things, they promote investments in emergency capacities and a better digital infrastructure as well as IT security projects.

"This leads to a huge demand for specialists who drive the digital transformation in hospitals," says Georgi Chaltikyan, head of the "Digital Health" master's program at the Deggendorf University of Applied Sciences.

In his opinion, the so-called digital health applications will also bring movement to the digitization of the health system.

Doctors have been able to prescribe "apps on prescription" since the end of 2019.

"This will also trigger massive demand for specialists," says Chaltikyan.

Exactly how high it is is difficult to estimate.

Chaltikyan looks to Britain for his prognosis.

According to the non-profit organization HIMSS (Healthcare Information Management Systems Society), around 30,000 digital health specialists will be needed there in the next three to four years.

"If you transfer that, that would be almost 40,000 in Germany," says the professor.

More and more complex IT systems

The great demand meets a great shortage of skilled workers.

"Currently, 20 to 30 percent of the IT positions in hospitals that are needed for good care are probably vacant," says Jürgen Flemming, board member of the Federal Association of Hospital IT Managers.

He is certain that this value will continue to rise as a result of the Hospital Future Act.

The reason: There will be more and more complex IT systems in hospitals in the future.

And some of these systems have to be monitored around the clock every day.

IT projects are already often delayed due to the lack of skilled workers, says Flemming.

"If a hospital has commissioned a digitization project, it may have to wait six to nine months before it can start." The bottom line is clear: hospitals in Germany not only lack nursing staff, but also digitization experts.