Driving digital innovation: Germany’s Health Data Lab (HDL) is live

Driving digital innovation: Germany’s Health Data Lab (HDL) is live.

The Health Data Lab (HDL) at Germany’s Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices is designed to strengthen medical research through new digital services. Hosted on a secure IT infrastructure provided by Bechtle, the HDL enables researchers to use health data in compliance with privacy regulations—supporting the development of better therapies and care solutions.

The Health Data Lab (HDL) consolidates billing data from everyone covered by Germany’s statutory health insurance system—including diagnoses, prescriptions and hospital stays. In future, this will also include data collected from electronic patient records (ePA). All data is pseudonymised before transmission, so no dataset contains directly identifying details such as names or addresses. Privacy is built in from the ground up.

Data can save lives. The Health Data Lab offers a central resource for health research in Germany, giving access to previously unavailable datasets—all while maintaining the highest standards of data protection. These datasets lay the groundwork for studying long-term effects on public health. The findings will help deliver more targeted prevention, more effective treatments and faster access to innovative, safe medicines. That strengthens both research and data protection.

Nina Warken, Federal Minister of Health

For more on the Health Data Lab, see the press release from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Health. (German language)

Press release

A solid technological foundation.

The Health Data Lab runs on a cutting-edge IT environment built to meet today’s data protection and cybersecurity standards. Researchers connect via encrypted channels to a secure virtual workspace, where they can access tailored datasets and purpose-built software. The data stays within the protected environment at all times, with every step logged and monitored. Bechtle is driving this ambitious project in partnership with SAP and Capgemini, and operates the dedicated infrastructure from a data centre in Germany.

We’re proud to be building and running the containerised private cloud architecture that underpins one of the most significant digitalisation projects in German healthcare. It’s a future-ready platform that gives the Health Data Lab a reliable environment for working with data and delivering innovative digital services.

Christian Behma, Managing Director, Bechtle IT System House Bonn

Clear rules for data use.

Data use follows a clearly defined process. Researchers apply via the Health Data Lab portal, where each request is reviewed for scientific merit, legal basis and data protection compliance. Once approved, they access a secure virtual workspace to carry out their analyses and receive anonymised results. The Health Data Lab provides a safe framework for data-driven research—with the goal of bringing lasting, positive change to healthcare in Germany.

Our modern private cloud architectures, containerised platform solution and automated operations and orchestration processes form the backbone of the Health Data Lab’s data and application landscape, as well as its IT service processes.

Jan Albrecht, Enterprise Architect, Bechtle IT System House Bonn