The Peter L. Reichertz Institute stands for high-level international research

Medical informatics is significantly relevant to both the University of Braunschweig - Institute of Technology (TU Braunschweig) and the Hannover Medical School (MHH) for research and education, and for MHH it is equally so for patient care and strategically managing its information system. With support from the State government of Lower Saxony, the universties have entered into a contractual agreement to unite their medical informatics institutes as a joint institute, named the Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics. The Director of this new institute is Dr. Reinhold Haux, Professor of Medical Informatics at TU Braunschweig, and the Vice-Director is Dr. Herbert Matthies, Professor of Medical Informatics at MHH.

Dr. Peter L. Reichertz (1930 – 1987) was the first professor of medical informatics at the Hannover Medical School and director of MHH’s then newly-established institute of medical informatics. He also initiated and actively contributed to setting up the medical informatics curriculum for computer science students at TU Braunschweig. He is renowned today as a pioneering researcher in the field of medical informatics.

In establishing this institute both universities expect to better stimulate internationally competitive research and education in the field of medical informatics, while encouraging interdisciplinary research between TU Braunschweig and MHH as a whole. The institute, with locations in Braunschweig and Hannover can make good use of E-learning opportunties and help leverage regional, national and international connections for both education and research.

For the TU Braunschweig and the Hannover Medical School it was natural to seek such opportunities for cooperation in medical informatics by forging this regional center of excellence. The Scientific Commission of the state of Lower Saxony, Germany, where both universities are located, had suggested such initiatives for the universities.

The relevance of medical informatics for both universities is likely to grow in the future, as the impact of health care advances and becomes increasingly critical to society as a whole. Even now, health care is for Lower Saxony one of the most important components of its economy, accounting for 385,000 jobs and 24.8 Billion Euros of goods and services. An effective, modern health care system contributes substantially to the quality of life of the citizens of Lower Saxony. Informatics products and services are essential for this. In addition, new jobs are likely to spring up in this field, helping retain and even grow the employment base.

From the viewpoint of the state of Lower Saxony, the complementary strengths of the universities in Lower Saxony have been taken into account to improve regional cooperation and enhance their international competitiveness. Taking into account resource constraints, the setting up of joint, multi-site institutes, which are better able to sucessfully compete internationally and which can enable further synergies, is being strongly encouraged.