"The European Health Data Space (EHDS) is a framework that ensures the exchange of essential and crucial medical data for saving human lives. The benefits of such a framework were confirmed to me by the citizens of Sibiu County, where I implemented the digital medical portal. Now, citizens have easier access to their medical data which is just a 'click' away. At the same time, by allowing access to their medical history to health professional, they can benefit from a more accurate diagnosis with a more appropriate treatment which is based on complete and relevant data." Daniela Cimpean, the CoR rapporteur on the European Health Data Space made these remarks when presenting here opinion at the CoR plenary session.
WATCH: Sibiu's Medical Portal success story
Sharing the best practice at the local level, Cimpean, who serves as President of Sibiu County Council said that through the EHDS, investments in health can be made much more efficiently and equitably, based on the information provided. "As an authority that is responsible for the most important hospitals in the county, I could see the usefulness of medical data collected over the years in substantiating investment in health infrastructure. This way, we were able to create and structure this project according to the real needs of the citizens, one of the most important projects for the health of our citizens: the construction of a new emergency regional hospital. All these, together with the benefits of health data processing by healthcare providers, researchers, regulators, make the EHDS a central component of a strong European Health Union."
Tomislav Sokol, Member of the European Parliament (EPP Group) said that in terms of R&D Europe is lagging behind because of lack of data from different member states. W"e want to have a situation where data can be interoperable, especially for rare diseases where data is limited." He also spoke on the need of patient empowerment in the process and the need of an opt out approach for data not be used for secondary sources. Furthermore, he stressed the need of further EU funding for the EHDS to work.
In her opinion, Cîmpean said that in seeking to empower individuals to have increased access to and control over their electronic health data, it must be ensured that vulnerable groups, and in particular older people with limited digital skills or limited access to digital resources, are not neglected.
With respect to governance, the rapporteur stresses that the success of the EHDS requires a multi-level governance approach and solutions not only at EU and national level, but also at regional and local level. It also calls for the CoR, as the representative of local and regional authorities, to be represented on the EHDS Board.
The EHDS will provide quality information on service consumption, diseases, treatments, adverse effects of treatments, etc., allowing health policy experts and researchers to identify gaps between regions / member countries in terms of specific public health indicators, allowing the development of health policies and programs appropriate to local needs.
