Interview | Prof. Dr. Petra Ritter, Head of the “Brain Simulation Section” at the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
This interview was published at braincity.berlin. The interview was contucted by Ernestine von der Osten-Sacken.
Robots assist in the operating room, monitoring systems help to detect diseases earlier and medically monitor chronic diseases: Artificial Intelligence is increasingly being used in hospitals, doctors’ surgeries and laboratories. It supports workflows in the healthcare sector and makes care more efficient. But how secure and trustworthy are such AI-based applications? There are currently hardly any standardised processes and infrastructures for testing and validating such products adequately under real-life conditions. However, this is now also mandatory at European level for the health sector. This is where TEF-Health comes in, a cross-border “Test and Experimentation Facility for Health AI and Robotics.” Prof. Dr. Petra Ritter, Head of the “Brain Simulation Section” at the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, coordinates the consortium. In the Brain City interview, she gives an insight into the TEF-Health project.
Prof. Dr. Ritter: the TEF-Health project was launched in early 2023. Why right now?
There is an important reason for this: the AI Act came into force across Europe in 2024. The regulation is intended as a comprehensive legal framework to ensure that Artificial Intelligence systems are developed and deployed in Europe in a secure and trustworthy manner. Of course, this also applies to the medical sector. Specifically, this means: from 2026, all medical devices that contain AI systems – i.e. that create more complex mathematical calculations based on patient data – must be tested and certified for safety and trustworthiness in accordance with the AI Act. There is currently still a period of grace. However, these requirements pose a major challenge for startups and SMEs in particular. Certifiers also have to adapt to the new AI Act first. Standards, norms and test protocols must be defined. Companies, on the other hand, need secure test and experimentation infrastructures in which they can test their AI systems and which also provide access to health data. This is where TEF-Health comes into play.
What exactly does TEF-Health offer?
With TEF-Health, we primarily want to test new AI approaches in realistic scenarios. This includes...
The TEF-Health consortium has launched its second funding call for European SMEs. Developers of AI and robotics solutions in healthcare benefit from subsidized access to top-notch testing, validation, and certification services across Europe to accelerate the development of trustworthy and safe tools.
