Recarta: Intelligent Institutional Real Estate Management

The startup Recarta has quickly established itself as a specialist in digital data extraction and processing for institutional real estate management. The Swiss company focuses on an economically significant niche: institutional real estate managers. These clients—including pension funds, publicly traded real estate funds, cantons, and international law firms—are grappling with a fundamental problem: How can the unstructured data from the overwhelming volume of documents related to their real estate portfolios be converted into actionable insights?

Background and Project Participants

The Frankfurt am Main Public Health Department is one of the largest municipal public health departments in Germany. It is responsible for protecting and promoting the health of the city’s residents and also plays an important role in many health initiatives. As early as 2016, the Public Health Department began digitizing its administrative and specialized processes. The COVID-19 pandemic marked a turning point in 2020: it exposed weaknesses in the digital infrastructure of the public health service, particularly regarding the efficient collection, processing, and transmission of data.

To address these shortcomings, the European Union provided funding to the Federal Ministry of Health under NextGenerationEU for the so-called “Pact for the Public Health Service.” With this funding, the “GA-Lotse” project was developed in collaboration with the Hessian Ministry of Family, Seniors, Sports, Health, and Care and the Frankfurt am Main Public Health Department. GA-Lotse is an open-source platform designed to digitally manage all core work processes within a public health department and is available free of charge to all public health departments. Key partners included cronn GmbH for software development, VSHN for platform engineering and DevOps, and Exoscale as a leading European cloud provider ensuring secure operations.

The Challenge

The project was subject to complex conditions. Since each of the 24 public health departments in Hesse operates with its own processes and IT systems, a federated, decentralized approach was required. Added to this was a wide range of IT expertise among the local stakeholders, which is why an easy-to-operate solution was necessary.

The requirements for data protection and IT security were extremely high: GDPR compliance, Privacy by Design, a zero-trust security model, and certifications such as ISO 27001, BSI C5, and HDS for the healthcare sector had to be met. At the same time, the timeline—less than twelve months from project start to go-live—was very ambitious—a goal that could only be achieved with highly automated cloud deployments.

The Selection Process

VSHN and Exoscale stood out due to their exclusive data storage in European data centers, compliance with strict data protection guidelines, and certifications specifically tailored for use in the public sector and healthcare. In addition, Exoscale offered a dedicated cloud environment that is nonetheless elastically scalable—a crucial prerequisite for securely and efficiently operating different public health agency instances.

The Solution: Exoscale as a Sovereign Cloud Platform

GA-Lotse was implemented as a fully cloud-native solution. It is based on the Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, which is operated as a managed service by VSHN, while Exoscale provides the underlying infrastructure. With data processing exclusively within Europe and high security standards, the platform meets all regulatory and technical requirements.

The architecture utilizes a service mesh with central services for up to 21 modules per public health department, separate PostgreSQL databases, caching via Redis, and security mechanisms such as reverse proxies. Through consistent automation, additional instances for other federal states could be rolled out in a very short time.

For Exoscale, this project was a pivotal moment that demonstrated how open source, compliance, and digital sovereignty can work together in the public sector without compromising on performance or security.

Business Value and Benefits for the Public Health Department

The implementation offers significant added value for Frankfurt and the entire public health service. GA-Lotse standardizes administrative processes while allowing for individual customization by each agency. By anonymizing sensitive data before sharing it with state authorities, privacy is protected and the strictest data protection requirements are met.

The cloud-native architecture is scalable, sustainable, and can be adapted to new requirements. As a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, it significantly reduces the burden on local IT, allowing employees to focus more on their core tasks. And thanks to its open-source strategy, it avoids vendor lock-in, reduces long-term costs, and promotes cooperation between agencies across state borders.

Furthermore, as a European provider, Exoscale strengthens trust in the system, as all legal requirements within the European context are met—an important factor for public organizations with strict compliance requirements.

Conclusion

GA-Lotse clearly demonstrates in practice that digital sovereignty and innovation in healthcare are compatible. It is crucial to closely integrate platform architecture and software development at an early stage so that the solution is optimally tailored to specific requirements. The success in Hesse serves as a model for other institutions, particularly in public administration. With open technologies, consistent compliance, and reliable partners, a future-proof infrastructure can be created even under time pressure.