The Success Story of the Frankfurt am Main Public Health Office with Exoscale
Category
Industry
Background and Project Stakeholders
The Public Health Office of Frankfurt am Main is one of the largest municipal health authorities in Germany. It is responsible for protecting and promoting the health of the city’s citizens and plays a key role in numerous public health initiatives. As early as 2016, the authority began digitizing its administrative and specialist processes.
The COVID-19 pandemic marked a turning point in 2020, exposing weaknesses in the digital infrastructure of public health services-particularly in the efficient collection, processing, and transmission of data.
To address these shortcomings, the European Union provided funding through the NextGenerationEU program to the German Federal Ministry of Health as part of the “Pact for the Public Health Service.” Using these funds, the project “GA-Lotse” was created in collaboration with the Hessian Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Sport, Health and Care and the Frankfurt Public Health Office.
GA-Lotse is an open-source platform designed to digitally manage all core workflows within a public health office and is provided free of charge to health authorities. Key partners included cronn GmbH for software development, VSHN for platform engineering and DevOps, and Exoscale as the sovereign European cloud provider ensuring secure operations.
The Challenge
The project operated under complex conditions. Each of the 24 public health offices in Hesse uses its own processes and IT systems, requiring a federated, decentralized approach. In addition, IT expertise varied significantly across local authorities, making an easy-to-operate solution essential.
Data protection and IT security requirements were extremely high:
- GDPR compliance
- Privacy by Design
- Zero-Trust security model
- Certifications such as ISO 27001, BSI C5, and HDS for healthcare
At the same time, the timeline-from project start to go-live in less than twelve months-was highly ambitious and achievable only through highly automated cloud deployments.
The Selection Process
VSHN and Exoscale stood out through:
- Exclusive data storage in European data centers
- Compliance with strict data protection regulations
- Certifications tailored to public sector and healthcare requirements
Exoscale also provided a dedicated yet elastically scalable cloud environment, a critical prerequisite for securely and efficiently operating multiple health authority 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, 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 includes:
- A service mesh with central services supporting up to 21 modules per health authority
- Separate PostgreSQL databases
- Redis caching
- Security mechanisms such as reverse proxies
Through consistent automation, additional instances for further federal states can be deployed within a very short time.
For Exoscale, this project represented a key milestone, demonstrating how open source, compliance, and digital sovereignty can successfully converge in the public sector-without compromising performance or security.
Business Value and Benefits for the Public Health Office
The implementation delivers significant value for Frankfurt and the broader public health system:
- Standardized administrative processes with the ability for authority-specific customization
- Anonymization of sensitive data before exchange with state authorities, ensuring maximum privacy and compliance
- A scalable, sustainable cloud-native architecture adaptable to future requirements
- Software-as-a-Service delivery, significantly reducing the burden on local IT teams
- Open-source strategy, preventing vendor lock-in, lowering long-term costs, and fostering cross-regional collaboration
As a European provider, Exoscale further strengthens operational trust by ensuring full compliance with the European legal and regulatory framework-a decisive factor for public organizations with strict compliance obligations.
Conclusion
GA-Lotse clearly demonstrates in practice that digital sovereignty and innovation in healthcare are fully compatible.
A key success factor is the early and close integration of platform architecture and software development, ensuring the solution is optimally aligned with specific requirements.
The success achieved in Hesse serves as a blueprint for other public institutions, particularly within government administration. With open technologies, rigorous compliance, and reliable partners, even highly ambitious projects can deliver future-ready infrastructure under tight timelines.