This page documents the progress of the project ZiBeKo – Target Group-Specific Needs Assessment and Communication, carried out as part of Community Innovative Care (CIP) within the DATIpilot programme of the German Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR). All updates are listed in reverse chronological order – the latest news always appears at the top.

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ZiBeKo: Methodology & First Insights into Care Innovation

Reading time: approx. 5 minutes

Over recent weeks, we have laid the groundwork for the scientific work in our ZiBeKo sub-project: a systematic desk research that maps the German care landscape, the state of care digitalisation, and the needs of our target groups. As a sub-project of Community Innovative Pflege (CIP) within the BMFTR’s DATIpilot programme, we are providing the empirical and theoretical basis for the upcoming field phase with stakeholder interviews from care practice, research, and industry.

This post offers a look into our methodological approach — and shares first insights that have sharpened some of our assumptions and surprised us with others.

Why desk research before field research?

Before we go into depth with care professionals, facility managers, or health insurers, we need to know what we are talking about. A robust needs assessment in practice-oriented care research builds on existing data — otherwise one risks asking questions whose answers have long been documented, or duplicating existing studies instead of using their findings as a springboard.

Our desk research therefore pursues three goals:

1. to structurally understand the care landscape — who is who, how is it organised, where are the tensions
2. to capture the current state of care digitalisation — what is working, what is stuck, what is missing
3. to sharpen our interview questions empirically and theoretically — so that we don’t ask blindly in the field, but close gaps systematically

Our methodology: Five blocks, one logic

We structured the desk research in five interlocking blocks.

Block A — Understanding the care landscape. Structural basis: numbers, distributions, trends. Key sources: care statistics from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the RWI Essen care home rating report, the Bertelsmann Foundation’s care infrastructure study, and the DAA follow-up study 2022.

Block B — Digitalisation in care. Status quo of digital applications, funding programmes, and legal frameworks. In focus: DAA studies 2017 and 2022, position papers from the digitalisation-in-care alliance, digital care applications under § 40a SGB XI, mandatory connection to the telematics infrastructure (TI) since 1 July 2025, and the BMFTR’s “Pflegeinnovationen 2030” programme.

Block C — What moves the target groups. For each of our seven target group segments — from facility managers and outpatient care managers to software providers and health insurers — we reviewed segment-specific studies, industry reports, and needs surveys.

Block D — What already exists. Which innovations, initiatives, and funded projects are already in place? What can we learn from international best practice such as Buurtzorg in the Netherlands or digitalised care in Scandinavia? Where do we complement other DATIpilot communities and the Cluster Zukunft der Pflege?

Block E — Theoretical foundation. As a scientific sub-project, we anchor our needs assessment theoretically. We draw on three classics that describe precisely what a care innovation community such as CIP is currently living: Davis’s Technology Acceptance Model (1989) for care technology acceptance, Rogers’s Diffusion of Innovations (2003) for how new solutions spread within organisations, and Wenger’s concept of Communities of Practice for shared learning across practice communities.

First insights: What we found

We expected the care landscape to be under pressure. We did not expect how systematically and unanimously this diagnosis is documented.

The pressure is real and measurable. Three quarters of care professionals regularly work under high time pressure, and 71 percent do not expect to be able to work until retirement — compared to 42 percent in the general population (DAA follow-up 2022). Forecasts project a shortfall of 157,000 care professionals by 2040. The Bertelsmann study adds: no German district is expected to be spared from staffing shortages, with eastern Germany hit twice over — declining labour force potential meets sharply rising demand.

Digitalisation is progressing — but unevenly. Over 80 percent of facilities state that digitalisation has only been partially, hardly, or not at all implemented at their site. At the same time, the willingness is there: 47 percent of care professionals want voice recognition for documentation, 42 percent want mobile devices. The most desired technologies are precisely the least widespread. Germany ranks 16th out of 17 in international digitalisation comparisons.

The perception of policymaking is unambiguous. 95 percent of surveyed care professionals believe that politics has not understood the problems of the care sector — a figure that confirms our approach: a care innovation community like CIP starts not from the top, but with those who deliver care every day.

The outpatient market is large and under pressure. At the end of 2024, 17,769 outpatient care services were providing care to around 2.2 million patients — the number of services rose by 2.2 percent in 2024. Notably, providers are shifting investment from personnel to digitalisation because staff cannot scale. At the same time, financing rules for many digital innovations are still missing.

CIP does not stand alone, but in its own place. We are one of 20 consortia selected from 480 applications in the DATIpilot programme, with up to five million euros in funding for 2025–2029. Alongside us, the Cluster Zukunft der Pflege (BMBF, 2017–2029, phase 2), the telecare model programme under § 125a SGB XI, and international references such as Buurtzorg are also active. Where the cluster works technology-centred and scientifically, CIP is community-oriented and practice-driven — the two complement each other rather than competing.

What this means for the field phase

We draw three methodological consequences from these findings.

First, we have sharpened our sampling. The regional differences between East and West, urban and rural, are not cosmetic — they reflect structurally different starting points, as the Bertelsmann data show. We select our interview partners along four axes (region, setting, size, ownership) so that outpatient and inpatient digital care are captured from multiple perspectives.

Second, we have revised our interview guide. New probes on TI connection, DiPA under § 40a SGB XI, and voice recognition close gaps that had not been clear to us before. Acceptance questions now explicitly follow the logic of the Technology Acceptance Model — with items on perceived usefulness and ease of use.

Third — and perhaps most importantly — we enter the field with a sharpened hypothesis: care technology acceptance is often less a technology problem than a process problem. The desk research shows: there are tools, there is funding, there is demand. What is often missing is structured introduction and ongoing support — the “implementation gap” that Rogers’s diffusion theory describes precisely.

What comes next

In the coming weeks, we are continuing the interview series we started with our first conversation in Heidelberg. Focus: outpatient care managers, operational care professionals, software providers, and health insurers. After that, the quantitative phase will broadly validate the qualitative findings.

In our view, meaningful care innovation in Germany only succeeds when it is developed close to practice — and when voices that are rarely heard get a seat at the table. If you want to contribute your own experience or point us to relevant sources, you are warmly invited. More about the project on our project page.

Do you know studies, practice insights, or contacts we should be aware of? Get in touch — we welcome every perspective we may have missed so far.

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CIP Member Meeting April 2026: Looking Back and Heading Into Round Two

Reading time: approx. 4 minutes

On 16 April 2026, the Community Innovative Pflege (CIP) came together for its digital member meeting. Alongside around 30 participants from nursing practice, research, and industry, our ZiBeKo team reviewed the past year, discussed the results of the first funding round, and helped sharpen the topics for the second round.

An intensive morning – here are our key takeaways.

Looking Back at 2025 and Q1 2026: A Solid Foundation for Nursing Innovation in Germany

The past year was marked by tangible growth. The community has visibly connected with policymakers, professional associations, and other DATIpilot communities. Team Innovative Pflege e.V. also welcomed new members.

Key milestones in the digitalisation of nursing care include:

• Launch and relaunch of the website innovativepflege.de
• Building a LinkedIn presence
• Kick-off of the technical working groups (Facharbeitsgruppen, FAGs)
• Start of a total of five community projects

The team was also present at major industry events: the DATIpilot community meeting in Leipzig (October 2025), ProCare Hannover (February 2026), the admission of the Caritas associations of the Diocese of Mainz, and the DaKILP hackathon (February 2026). A strategy workshop in February set the course for what comes next – and today the preparation of the second project call was finalised.

Results of the First Funding Round: Four Projects + Starter Project

The selection process was structured and transparent. Of 17 submissions, 10 were not endorsed due to insufficient fit, 7 were admitted to the vote, 4 received a funding recommendation – and all 4 were approved. In addition, CIP is running its own starter project.

The starter project is building a dynamic, care-appropriate online catalogue for digital assistance systems, including a built-in evaluation system (CareTechSelect). It is complemented by a Mixed Reality application that lets nursing staff realistically assess the workload-relief potential of digital assistance systems.

The three other funded projects at a glance:

• DaKILP – Data foundation for AI solutions in nursing: a public-interest data base, process-oriented use cases, and tested AI prototypes. Partners include Diakonie, Caritas, Hof University of Applied Sciences, FINSOZ, and the Data Science Institute.
• DiPA – Digital Nursing Assistance: cutting roughly 60 minutes of daily coordination effort via AI-supported assessments at the point of care, DIHVA systems, and modern mobile diagnostics (digital otoscopy, stethoscopes, 6-lead ECG).
• Pflegekontour: AI-supported process digitalisation for wound management in both outpatient and inpatient nursing care – with Hof University, Awesome Technologies, Audience.AI, and C&S.

Current Status Q2/2026: Research and Practice in Dialogue

The starter project is currently in qualitative evaluation of focus groups and expert interviews with nursing staff from five facilities. Core questions: the burden of indirect nursing tasks and expectations toward digital assistance systems as workload relief.

In parallel, teams are developing the online catalogue and the MR application. From September 2026, initial results will be presented to nursing staff – for direct feedback and further iterations.

The approach is deliberately highly participatory: nursing staff are not only the target group, they are co-designers. That creates transparency in technology assessment and lays the groundwork for the association’s upcoming “nursing maturity level” (Pflegereifegrad) – an important building block for broader acceptance of nursing technology in the field.

Second Funding Round: These Topics Are in Focus

For the second funding call, the CIP management team has prioritised seven thematic areas:

1. Digital nursing & real-world labs
2. Technology integration
3. Pilot study on assistance systems
4. Nursing data use & the European Health Data Space (EHDS)
5. Interoperability & scaling (e.g. ePA, TIM)
6. Classification & maturity level
7. Process-innovation guidelines

The selection criteria remain clear: projects must contribute to digital assistance systems, involve at least two of the three stakeholder groups (nursing, research, industry), stay below the maximum funding amount of €300,000, and be completed by the end of 2028. The technology readiness level is typically TRL 6–7.

Our View from the ZiBeKo Team

For us as the ZiBeKo subproject (target-group-specific needs assessment and communication), the meeting was a real tailwind. It underlined how much nursing innovation in Germany depends on a dialogue that takes nursing professionals seriously. That is exactly what we are working on – through our ongoing interviews in inpatient care (starting March 2026 in the Heidelberg region) and our completed desk-research blocks A–E.

Join In

Will you be at DMEA on 21 April in Berlin or at the Altenpflege trade fair in Nuremberg? Come and connect – CIP is organising networking events on site, including a networking dinner on DMEA Tuesday around 19:30.

You can find more on our work on our ZiBeKo project page and in our kick-off blog post. Questions, ideas, or collaboration interest? We would love to hear from you.

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