TEHDAS country visits

TEHDAS visited European countries with the aim of collecting an overview of the state-of-play of the national health data management developments in relation to the European health data space.

The joint action Towards the European Health Data Space (TEHDAS) conducted 12 country visits to engage with national stakeholders and to map the countries’ readiness to join the European health data space (EHDS).

During the country visits the TEHDAS team interviewed national stakeholders working with health data. The following domains were covered: data sources, data quality, data infrastructure, data storage, data access, data interoperability, data governance, resources and the EHDS.

The visits were carried out by the TEHDAS team responsible for outreach and engagement.

Country factsheets

TEHDAS published factsheets of each country visited.

Objectives

For the countries being mapped

1. An opportunity to bring together stakeholders involved in the health information system (HIS).
2. An overview of the current situation in your country regarding health data management and the regulations supporting health data exchange for secondary use.
3. A possibility to influence the European Commission’s legislative proposal of the EHDS with country’s needs and expectations.
4. An insight into the current state of the national HIS to potentially join the EHDS (structurally and politically) and the awareness thereof among stakeholders.
5. An opportunity to identify the capacity building needs and link with training opportunities.

For the TEHDAS Joint Action and the European Comission

1. To map the state-of-play of the national health data management developments and their organisation in relation to a future EHDS.
2. To reflect on the needs and expectations at national level and reflect on how TEHDAS and the EHDS can respond to them.
3. To identify the human and financial resources needed for various European countries to potentially join and link to a future EHDS and become national nodes.
4. To support the building of a sustainable and pragmatic EHDS.

Methodology

The mapping exercise and tool are based on a World Health Organisation tool revised by the joint action on Health Information, InfAct. The exercise includes a preparatory desk review, semi-structured interviews with local stakeholders and a final report with a one-page fact sheet per country.

Timeline

A call for expression of interest was launched to TEHDAS consortium in September 2021 to identify the countries willing to participate in the visits. The visits were carried out in the selected countries from December 2021 to December 2022. The main findings of the visits were published in April 2023.