For Rainer Birkenbach, the history of functional neurosurgery is also a history of digital transformation in healthcare. “It was the first clinical field in which images were used, not only for diagnosis, but also to plan the procedure: How do I get from the opening in the skull to the target in the brain?” This question wouldn’t let him go—even as a student, he programmed the first stereotactic planning software for a neurosurgeon. What began as a university internship became his life’s work. 

Today, decades later, the same question arises on a different scale. Deep brain stimulation requires collaboration between two medical disciplines that have long operated in separate information silos: neurosurgery and neurology. The surgeon implants the electrode deep within the brain—the neurologist then programs the stimulation field. Brainlab software creates a shared workflow for image-guided therapy: from preoperative planning through the procedure to individualized stimulation programming—a form of healthcare workflow automation that, for the first time, gives both disciplines access to all relevant data in a single system. 

The progress is tangible on all three levels. Patients benefit from a more precise, gentler therapy. Surgeons and neurologists finally work from the same complete picture. And hospitals gain reproducible, fast workflows—which ultimately means more patients can be treated. For Rainer Birkenbach, it's the kind of progress he has pursued since his student days: software and medicine, consistently thought of together.