Rainer Thiel

Dr. Rainer Thiel is Director of empirica Communication and Technology Research in Bonn, Germany, and responsible for the Digital Health Business Unit. He has over 20 years of experience in research, education, and consulting, including public policy studies, economic theory application in political action, and impact assessments with a focus on policy reform, regulatory affairs, health systems and digital health. He led the 2021 European Commission study on eHealth, Interoperability of Health Data and Artificial Intelligence for Health and Care in the EU and was main author of the high-profile report #SmartHealthSystems – International comparison of health system digitalisation strategies, analysing technical readiness and policy reforms in OECD countries. He has been leading work packages on market research, deployment strategies and business modelling for a multitude of EU research projects on AI and data strategies in Health.