EuroHealthNet Responds to the EU Consultation on the European Health Data Space

The European Health Data Space (EHDS) is a Commission priority that aims at making the most of the potential of digital health to provide high-quality healthcare, reduce inequalities and promote access to health data for research and innovation on new preventive strategies, diagnosis and treatment. At the same time, it should ensure that individuals have control over their own personal data. This consultation was initiated to help shape the initiative on creating the EHDS.

While EuroHealthNet supports the creation of the EHDS, it emphasises that people should be fully in control of their data, and that platforms and applications used for sharing of health data should be easy to use for everyone. This can be facilitated by additionally investing in digital health literacy programmes for professionals as well as in non-professional settings. Moreover, initiatives to create a EHDS should be concious that the design of alghorithyms can be discriminatory and create gaps in care provision.

Read our full response to the consultation here.

In February this year, we also provided feedback to the European Commission’s feedback to the EHDS. More info is available here.