Advocacy

ERS and partners issue statement supporting the European Health Data Space

ERS and partners issue statement supporting the European Health Data Space - article image

On 20 October, ERS joined a wide range of stakeholders in welcoming the European Commission’s proposal on the European Health Data Space (EHDS). The stakeholders, which include medical professional and research organisations, patient representatives, industry associations and data collaborations strongly support the aims of the EHDS as proposed by the European Commission. They believe the adoption of the new legislation  “can bring important European alignment to, and rapidly scale up, well-governed access to health data sets for the delivery of healthcare services but also for a wide range of secondary use purposes for better health outcomes.”

The consensus statement encourages decision-makers to strongly support this Regulation and to engage with the broad group of stakeholders to ensure the final Regulation optimises its potential. The statement also recommends several considerations be taken into account when developing the more specific implementation plans, namely:

  1. A broad range of stakeholders must be strongly involved from the outset of the process to guarantee the success of the EHDS.
  2. The EHDS must align with all relevant horizontal and sectoral European laws.
  3. There must be harmonised interpretation and implementation of the Regulation across the EU.
  4. Approvals for secondary use of health data must be consistent and harmonised across Europe.
  5. The scope of EHR systems must be defined clearly within the Regulation.
  6. The successful implementation of the EHDS must be adequately resourced.
  7. Existing health data infrastructures must be leveraged to allow continuity and build on existing expertise.

Read the full statement.

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