Use of national health data

Member States – and under certain conditions also third-countries – are to make their health data electronically available throughout the EU for research, innovation, political decisions, the development of AI and personalised medicine.

In practice, this means that researchers and policy-makers can get simplified Europe-wide access to health data. The EHDS shall regulate the health data they can access, where and in what quality. The pooling of large data volumes should also make important medical advances possible for the treatment of diseases.

The exchange of secondary data takes place via HealthData@EU

Among other things, the contents of electronic patient records, data on claims and service invoices, data from population-wide health registers and clinical studies as well as data on the use of medicines and medical devices are to be made available. Member States shall establish national access points to ensure the exchange of data on the HealthData@EU infrastructure. They publish catalogues of the available datasets, authorise data use on request and charge fees.