In our Behind the Scenes interview series, we introduce the challenges of the Healthcare Hackathon Bayern – Erlangen 2026 and the people behind them.
What happens when artificial intelligence, medical education and spatial computing come together?
For our second challenge, we take a closer look at OTH Amberg-Weiden and the challenge “Meet Your AI Patient: Reinvent Medical History-Taking with AI and Apple Vision Pro”.
Prof. Dr. Eva Rothgang, Program Director of Medical Engineering at OTH Amberg-Weiden, explains what inspired the challenge and why AI-powered virtual patients could open up new possibilities for medical students to practice history-taking.
How was this challenge inspired?
As a professor and Director of the Medical Engineering Program at OTH Amberg-Weiden, I work at the intersection of medicine, engineering and emerging technologies. One question that particularly interests me is how we can use new technologies not just because they are fascinating, but because they can genuinely improve how we teach and learn medicine.
Medical history-taking is a perfect example. Students need practice, repetition and feedback to develop good communication skills. At the same time, advances in generative AI and spatial computing now allow us to create interactive experiences that were hardly imaginable a few years ago.
That led to a simple question: What if medical students could meet and interview an AI patient whenever they wanted to practice?
Why is this topic so important?
A good patient interview can provide crucial information for diagnosis, but good history-taking is much more than working through a checklist.
Students need to learn how to ask the right questions, listen carefully, structure a conversation, recognize relevant information and communicate empathetically. These are skills that develop through experience.
Real patients and standardized patient actors are invaluable, but training opportunities are naturally limited. An AI-powered virtual patient could complement existing teaching by giving students a safe environment where they can practice repeatedly, make mistakes and receive immediate feedback.
The goal is not to replace human interaction. It is to help students become better prepared for it.
Why should one take part in the Healthcare Hackathon Bayern – Erlangen 2026?
Because this challenge combines several exciting worlds: AI, medicine, education, virtual humans and spatial computing.
There is no single predefined solution. We want hackers to experiment. How realistic can an AI patient become? How should the patient react? What makes a conversation feel natural? What feedback actually helps a student improve? And how can Apple Vision Pro add something that a conventional chatbot cannot?
The Healthcare Hackathon gives us the opportunity to bring together developers, designers, healthcare experts and creative thinkers and turn these questions into a working prototype in just a few days.
What’s the ideal scenario for what happens with your challenge after the hackathon?
The ideal outcome is a prototype that makes us say: “Yes – this is how practicing medical history-taking with virtual patients could actually work.”
The hackathon does not have to deliver the finished product. It should show us what is possible – and create the starting point for the next generation of immersive medical education.