The MS360° approach aims to transform multiple sclerosis care from fragmented, appointment-based support into a more continuous, connected, and personalized model. In this interview, Dr. Isabel Voigt from the MS Center Dresden explains how digital tools, telemedicine, patient-reported outcomes, wearables, and real-world data could help detect changes earlier and support better treatment decisions.
Instead of relying only on occasional clinic visits, MS360° combines digital monitoring with in-person care. The goal is not to replace the human connection, but to strengthen it: patients should feel better supported between appointments, more involved in their care, and less alone in managing MS.
Dr. Voigt also shares why patient participation is essential, how artificial intelligence and digital twins may contribute to future precision medicine, and why connected care could be especially important for people with MS living in rural areas.
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1. Personal Introduction & Contex
Could you briefly introduce yourself and your role at the MS center?
Dr. Isabel Voigt, Research Assistant, TUD Dresden University of Technology: Sure, thanks for inviting me. I originally studied sociology. After graduating, I worked on various medical projects, such as those focusing on treatment preferences among older patients in primary care practices and cervical cancer screening. Since 2018, I have worked at the MS Center in Dresden, primarily focusing on digitalization topics in neurology, particularly in the context of MS.
My responsibilities at the MS center include initiating and collaborating on research projects, writing scientific publications, and contributing to initiatives such as developing quality indicators for MS monitoring. Last year, I completed my doctoral thesis on this topic.
In your daily work, what do you see as the biggest challenges for people living with MS?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: I see the biggest challenges for people living with MS around the period before and after diagnosis. Before diagnosis, many patients go through a long phase of uncertainty with nonspecific symptoms, they’ve seen multiple doctors, they feel something is wrong, but they don’t have an explanation yet. That can be very stressful and frustrating.
Afterwards, the focus shifts to processing the diagnosis, making treatment decisions, and coping with an unpredictable disease course. Many patients also feel unsure about what the best treatment path actually is for them. At the same time, they have to adjust their daily lives, careers, and future plans.
And on top of that, care is often fragmented. Patients are usually seen only at intervals, so important changes can be missed, and disease progression is sometimes only recognized once limitations are already noticeable.
So, it’s really this mix of uncertainty, complexity, and lack of continuity that makes this phase particularly challenging.
2. Current Reality of MS Care
Many patients experience MS care as fragmented and not very continuous — what does that look like in real life?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: In real life, fragmented care often means patients only see their neurologist every few months. In between visits, patients are largely on their own, and subtle changes, such as declines in mobility or cognition, can easily go unnoticed. For example, a patient might notice that walking becomes slightly more difficult over a few weeks, but by the time they see their neurologist, that change is already in the past, and often not fully captured.
Meanwhile, MS generates a lot of data from clinical visits, MRI scans, and lab tests, but this information is often scattered across different providers and systems. The real issue is that this information isn’t brought together in a continuous, structured way.
Why are important changes in symptoms or disease progression often detected too late?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: This mainly comes down to the episodic nature of current care. We typically capture data only during in-person visits, so a lot of what happens in everyday life between appointments is simply missed.
On top of that, patients don’t always recall or report symptoms completely, especially when changes are subtle or develop gradually.
As a result, disease progression is often only picked up once it has already translated into more noticeable limitations.
Patients don’t always feel actively involved in their care — what are the reasons for that?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: One key reason is that patients often don’t have access to the information they would need for true self-management. Without clear insight into their own health data, it’s difficult to actively engage in treatment decisions. At the same time, medical information can be complex, and not all patients feel confident interpreting it. This gap in health literacy can make it even harder to take an active role.
So overall, it’s a combination of limited access to data and limited support in understanding it that holds many patients back from being more involved.
How does limited access to specialized care affect patients, especially outside larger cities?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: Patients in rural areas often face long travel distances to specialized centers, which limits how often they can access multidisciplinary care. As a result, their condition is usually monitored less closely. In addition, many neurologists in local settings are not specialized in MS, which can make it more difficult to provide highly tailored, up-to-date care.
Access is not just about distance, but also about the level of specialization available.
3. The Idea Behind MS360°
You describe MS360° as a “digital-first, hybrid care model” — what does that mean in simple terms?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: In simple terms, MS360° describes a way of caring for people with MS where digital tools are used as the starting point for continuous monitoring, rather than relying only on occasional clinic visits.
“Digital-first” means that relevant health data – like patient-reported symptoms, activity measures, or clinical parameters – can be captured more continuously in daily life using digital tools. Importantly, many of these data points can already be collected before a clinical visit, allowing for a more informed and up-to-date consultation.
“Hybrid care” then combines this continuous digital monitoring with regular in-person consultations.
The idea is to connect these two worlds: everyday real-life data and specialist care, so that decisions are based on a more complete and up-to-date picture of the disease, enabling more personalized management over time.
What makes this approach fundamentally different from current MS care?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: The fundamental difference is the shift from episodic to continuous and data-integrated care. Today, MS care is largely based on isolated snapshots – patients come in every few months, and decisions are made from what can be observed at that specific point in time. In contrast, the MS360° concept is designed to continuously integrate data from daily life, clinical visits, and different providers into one coherent picture.
As described in the MS360° framework, this allows for a more proactive and personalized approach: changes can be detected earlier, and treatment decisions are based on longitudinal, real-world data rather than single time points.
What role do digital tools like apps, wearables, or telemedicine play in this model?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: In the MS360° model, digital tools are the backbone for continuous, real-world data collection and communication. Apps and patient-reported outcomes allow symptoms, fatigue, or quality of life to be captured regularly in daily life, not just during clinic visits. Wearables add objective data, for example on mobility, activity, or sleep. And telemedicine helps maintain closer contact between patients and care teams without requiring frequent in-person visits.
Together, these tools create a continuous data stream that complements traditional clinical assessments and makes care more proactive, personalized, and responsive over time.
Can you walk us through what a patient journey might look like in this new model?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: A typical patient journey in the MS360° model would look much more continuous and connected than today’s standard care. It would start even before diagnosis, where symptoms and concerns could already be captured digitally and help support earlier suspicion and faster diagnostic pathways. For example, imagine a patient who starts noticing fatigue and slight balance problems. In today’s system, these early changes might not be fully captured or taken seriously right away.
Once MS is diagnosed, the patient enters a hybrid care system: they still have regular in-person visits, but these are complemented by continuous digital monitoring in daily life. At the beginning, a comprehensive baseline assessment is performed, including clinical, functional, cognitive, imaging, and laboratory evaluations. Patients are also introduced to the digital tools and the overall care pathway. From there, relevant health data are collected continuously. This includes patient-reported outcomes as well as sensor-based data, for example from wearable devices. These data are analysed over time and compared to predefined thresholds. Algorithm-based or AI-supported systems help prioritise relevant signals and reduce data overload. If clinically meaningful changes occur, alerts can be triggered. These are reviewed by the care team, which then decides on the appropriate next step. In many cases, minor changes can be managed remotely through teleconsultations or digitally supported interventions. If more significant changes are detected, patients are invited for in-person reassessment or treatment adjustment.
Importantly, regular on-site visits still take place, independent of acute events, to reassess disease status, update baseline information, and optimise long-term management. After these visits, patients return to continuous monitoring.
Across all steps, the model integrates structured coordination, planning, and quality monitoring to ensure continuity and efficiency of care.
Over time, treatment decisions are not based only on isolated clinic visits, but on a longitudinal, data-rich picture of how the disease is evolving in real life. So instead of isolated snapshots, you really follow the disease as it happens in everyday life.
4. What Does This Mean for Patients?
How could this model change daily life for someone living with MS?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: It would make care much more integrated into daily life. Instead of relying mainly on occasional clinic visits, patients can share symptoms and health data continuously through digital tools. Instead of planning their life around clinic visits, care becomes something that adapts to the patient’s daily routine – not the other way around. This reduces the logistical burden, since many routine checks can be done digitally. At the same time, it gives patients reassurance that they are being monitored more continuously and that the care team can be alerted quickly if something changes
In what way does it help patients feel more in control of their disease?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: It gives patients better visibility of their own condition. When they can see and track their symptoms or activity over time, it supports self-awareness and engagement. That often translates into a stronger sense of involvement in decision-making rather than just being a passive recipient of care.
Can it help detect worsening earlier — and why does that matter so much?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: Yes, absolutely. Continuous monitoring can detect subtle changes earlier than routine visits would allow. Because in MS, timing really matters – if we react earlier, we may be able to prevent disability that would otherwise become permanent. With bidirectional data flows, we often notice functional decline before patients themselves become aware of it in daily life. This enables us to react sooner and adjust treatment in a timely way, which is crucial to help prevent or reduce long-term disability accumulation.
How does communication with the care team improve in this model?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: Communication becomes more continuous and data-informed. Instead of only discussing how things were at the last appointment, patients and clinicians can base conversations on up-to-date, real-world data. This makes interactions more focused, timely, and relevant to what is actually happening between visits.
5. Learning from Data & Advancing Science
How can the continuous data collected in this model help improve MS research?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: For the first time, we can collect structured, long-term data from real life. This helps us better understand how MS behaves outside the clinic, evaluate how treatments work in everyday life, and identify suitable patients for research more efficiently.
Could this approach make treatments more personalized in the future?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: Yes, that’s one of the key goals. By combining clinical data with continuous real-world information, treatment decisions can be better tailored to the individual patient’s disease course, rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach.
Terms like “artificial intelligence” or “digital twins” sound complex — what do they mean for patients in simple words?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: In general, artificial intelligence is a tool that helps us learn from large amounts of data. It can recognize patterns and changes much faster than humans and support better decision-making. A digital twin is like a virtual copy of a patient’s health situation. It uses available data to model how a disease might develop and how different treatments could work.
In the context of MS360°, these kinds of technologies are also used to analyse the continuous data collected in daily life. For example, algorithm-based or AI-supported systems can help prioritise relevant signals and reduce data overload, so that important changes are not overlooked. This means we can better understand each individual disease course. Over time, this could help us predict changes earlier and choose the most suitable treatment in a more personalized way. It’s important to say: these tools don’t replace doctors – they support them. The final decision is always made together with the patient.
How important is patient participation for making this work?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: It’s essential. This model only works if patients actively contribute data in their daily lives. The more consistently and accurately they participate, the more complete the picture becomes, and the better care and research outcomes can be. It’s really a partnership between patients, clinicians, and technology.
6. Implementation: From Idea to Reality
How did you identify the need for a model like MS360°?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: The need became clear from everyday clinical practice: MS care is highly fragmented, follow-ups are episodic, and a lot of relevant information is lost between visits. At the same time, patients experience changes in their condition in between appointments that are not systematically captured.
What are the biggest challenges when trying to implement it in real healthcare systems?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: The main challenges are integration and interoperability, which involves bringing together data from different systems, providers, and settings. Additionally, regulatory, reimbursement, and workflow barriers make it difficult to implement new digital care structures in routine practice.
What needs to be in place for it to work — technically and organizationally?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: Technically, you need secure and interoperable digital infrastructure that can combine clinical and real-world data. Organizationally, you need clear workflows, trained healthcare professionals and patients, and aligned incentives so that digital monitoring is actually used in daily care.
How realistic is it that patients will benefit from this in the near future?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: We already see parts of this being implemented in pilot projects and specialized centers. Broader adoption will take time, but we are not starting from zero. Incremental steps – especially in digital monitoring and telemedicine – are realistically becoming part of standard care in the coming years.
For example, we are currently running a pilot project on telemedical care for people with MS in rural areas at our MS center, supported by the Hertie Foundation. We’re testing how telemedicine can support patients in rural areas, especially those who otherwise have limited access to specialized MS care.
7. Looking Ahead: The Future of MS Care
If we think a few years ahead: how could MS care change with approaches like this?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: MS care could become much more continuous and proactive. Instead of reacting to changes during occasional visits, we would monitor the disease in real time and intervene earlier. Care would also become more personalized, because decisions are based on a richer and more complete picture of each patient’s disease course in everyday life. Smart care pathways will also reduce the documentation burden for clinicians, leaving more time for direct patient interaction, while technology works in the background to ensure continuous safety monitoring.
Which development in the field of MS would you like to see in the next 5 years?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: My hope is that digital tools become fully integrated into routine MS care, rather than being limited to pilot projects. Ideally, approaches such as the digital twin would become standard, allowing us to offer every patient truly tailored precision medicine. More broadly, I would like to see care that integrates seamlessly into daily life, supports continuous monitoring, and ensures that no one is left behind.
Farewell
What would you like to leave our listeners with?
Dr. Isabel Voigt: One key message I would like to share with listeners is that the approach to MS care is shifting from an episodic, reactive one to a more continuous and personalized one. Although MS is still a complex and highly individualized disease, we now have better tools to understand what is happening between clinic visits and to intervene earlier when necessary. The goal is that patients don’t feel alone between appointments anymore, but supported in their daily lives.
This is not about technology for its own sake, but rather, it’s about better timing, care, and outcomes in everyday life. Patients are truly at the center of this change. Without their participation, none of this progress would be possible.
Finally, don’t be afraid of technology. When used well, technology is a powerful tool that supports independence. It should empower patients, not replace the human connection.
Ultimately, the goal is to modernize MS care in a way that makes it more continuous, more personal, and more closely aligned with real life — and, in doing so, more equitable and more humane.
Links mentioned and further reading
- Original MS360° paper in npj Digital Medicine:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-026-02461-4 - Dr. Isabel Voigt on LinkedIn:
https://de.linkedin.com/in/isabel-voigt-77b6b2357 - Multiple Sclerosis Living Lab Dresden:
https://msz.uniklinikum-dresden.de/en/zkn/ms-living-lab - #100: Digital Twins in MS Care with Prof. Tjalf Ziemssen:
https://ms-perspektive.de/en/100-digital-twin/ - #104: Leveraging AI in MS Care and Shared Decision-Making:
https://ms-perspektive.de/en/104-ai-in-ms-care/ - #158: Shared Decision Making in Multiple Sclerosis:
https://ms-perspektive.de/en/158-rueffer/ - #050: Future Treatment of MS with Prof. Tjalf Ziemssen:
https://ms-perspektive.de/en/50-tjalf-ziemssen/
This is the way MS care should be and speaking up in a friendly and informed way might help to establish that connected care earlier.
See you soon and try to make the best out of your life,
Nele
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