The value of health data and its role in Europe
Publication Date/Time
2022-09-23T12:00:00+00:00
Discover health-related open data and the EU’s plans for a European
Health Data Space
(OPEN) DATA AND THE HEALTHCARE SECTOR

Health is one of the top priorities of the European Commission. To
support healthcare in European Union (EU) Member States, EU policies
and actions in public health
[https://health.ec.europa.eu/eu-health-policy/overview_en] aim to: 

 	* Protect and improve the health of EU citizens;
 	* Support the modernisation of health systems and infrastructure;
 	* Improve the resilience of Europe’s health systems; and
 	* Equip EU countries to better prevent and address future pandemics.

OPEN DATA TO INFORM AND SUPPORT HEALTHCARE ACROSS EUROPE

Data can give policymakers, governments, businesses and citizens
information about the current situation in their country and across
Europe. Moreover, it can support services that contribute to EU and
national policies by creating, for example, interactive maps or
dashboards. These can help track vaccination rates, monitor the spread
of a virus, monitor hospital rates and survey death rates. For
example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries across Europe
used data to create dashboard showcasing these metrics, such as the
Norwegian Institute of Public Health’s dashboard
[https://www.fhi.no/en/id/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/daily-reports/daily-reports-COVID19/],
the Rijksoverheid Coronavirus dashboard in the Netherlands
[https://coronadashboard.government.nl/] and the European Centre for
Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) COVID-19 Situation Dashboard
[https://qap.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/COVID-19.html#eu-eea-daily-tab].

A good source to find European open data relating to health is
data.europa.eu [https://data.europa.eu/]. At the time of writing, this
official portal for European data  portal has 18,586 datasets
categorised as ‘Health
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets?categories=heal&page=1&locale=en]’.
The datasets available on data.europa.eu originate from EU and
national public administrations, including Eurostat
[https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat] and the ECDC
[https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en]. Examples are:

 	* Nursing homes
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/https-daten-digitale-mrn-de-dataset-008d2866-7b4e-4297-bb23-fa876bea2d75-dataset?locale=en],
published by Metropolregion Rhein-Neckar [https://www.m-r-n.com/] on
the German open data portal (GovData.de
[https://www.govdata.de/web/guest/suchen/-/details/recyclinghofe]).
This dataset is automatically generated and shows the location of
nursing homes in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region, in addition to
the city where they are located, the postcode, opening times and
contact information. 
 	* Coronavirus (Covid-19): Test sites
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/100134-kanton-basel-stadt?locale=en],
published by the Amt für Mobilität
[https://www.zh.ch/de/volkswirtschaftsdirektion/amt-fuer-mobilitaet.html]
on the Swiss open data portal (opendata.swiss
[https://opendata.swiss/de]). The dataset shows where people can be
tested for COVID-19. The dataset is updated by the Swiss Department of
Health and can be used to create an interactive map for users to find
testing sites.
 	* Surveillance Atlas of Infectious Diseases
[https://data.europa.eu/data/datasets/atlas_infectious_diseases?locale=en]_,
_published by the ECDC on their website. The dataset is a collection
of information from EU Member States through the European Surveillance
System
[https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/european-surveillance-system-tessy]
(TESSy) and is used as a tool on the ECDC
[https://atlas.ecdc.europa.eu/public/index.aspx] to allow users to
interact with the latest data on infectious diseases to produce tables
and maps. On the tool, users can select a health topic, subpopulation
and indicator, and have it visualised on the platform. 

OPEN DATA TO DEVELOP SERVICES TO IMPROVE CITIZEN’S HEALTH

Across Europe, public institutions and private companies use (open)
data to develop services. Some examples are:

 	* Serviço Nacional de Saúde (SNS) portal
[https://www.sns.gov.pt/], a Portuguese platform that aggregates
health data from various organisations across Portugal, including
national health institutions and the Shared Services of the Ministry
of Health [https://www.spms.min-saude.pt/]. The portal aims to
increase the transparency and efficiency of the national health
service in Portugal. The portal contains information on health
providers, including the location of hospitals, health centres and
pharmacies, the costs of medication or user fees and an indication of
waiting times. 
 	* Tree of Truth [https://tamm.stat.ee/?lang=en], a dashboard created
by Statistics Estonia [https://www.stat.ee/en] to show Estonia’s
progress towards their national strategic goals, based on national
statistics. The tool informs citizens and policymakers across Estonia
with metrics on the country’s progress on topics such as health.
Examples of metrics in the dashboard are life expectancy, healthy life
years, death due to chronic diseases and consumption of alcohol. 

A STEP FURTHER: A EUROPEAN HEALTH DATA SPACE 

Given the massive amounts of available data, and the new and
innovative services that are being created with it, the European Union
wants to facilitate a new data ecosystem where health data can be
shared fairly and securely. On 3 May 2022, the European Commission
presented its proposal for a European Health Data Space
[https://ec.europa.eu/health/ehealth-digital-health-and-care/european-health-data-space_en]
(EHDS). The EHDS aims to provide easier and more secure rules,
structures and processes across the European Union to access and share
health data. Its three main objectives are:

 	* To empower individuals by increasing their access and control of
their personal health data while helping data flow more freely; 
 	* To define standards for electronic medical record systems to
ensure their interoperability, security and use while respecting the
rights of individuals; and 
 	* To create a consistent and effective framework for organisations
wanting to use personal health data for research, innovation,
policymaking, official statistics, patient safety or regulatory
activities.

By focusing on these objectives, the EHDS will address the complexity
of European rules on data sharing in the health sector that were
revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic and foster the development of
digital services in the healthcare sector across Europe. To do this,
the EHDS builds on existing legislation, such as the General Data
Protection Regulation [https://gdpr.eu/], the Data Governance Act
[https://data.europa.eu/en/datastories/data-portals-and-data-governance-act],
the draft Data Act
[https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM%3A2022%3A68%3AFIN],
and the Network and Information S
[https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:32016L1148]ystems
Directive. 

GOING FORWARD: HOW CAN EUROPE BEST USE OPEN DATA TO IMPROVE CITIZEN
HEALTH?

Data plays an important role to ensure that all European citizens have
access to health services and medical care. As more data becomes
available, additional services will be created and a secure structure
for organisations (public and private) to access and share (health)
data will be crucial. Data portals, such as data.europa.eu and
national open data portals, are today already central access points to
(open) data. Their role can be reinforced, making them well placed to
provide the needed secure structures. 

Do you have any thoughts or ideas about this? Get in touch with us
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[https://data.europa.eu/en/newsletter]. 

Interested in more examples and use cases or inspired to develop your
own health application based on open data? Explore data.europa.eu
[https://data.europa.eu/en]. 
