Direct grants to Member States’ authorities: enabling patient access to their health data

General information

Priority

Citizens’ secure access to and sharing of health data across borders

Programme

EU4Health

Call

DI-g-25.4.1

Deadline model

one-stage

Submission date

Budget

€ Grant

Type of action

Description

POLICY CONTEXT Current services enabled by the eHDSI provide health professionals with access to patient data. However, the infrastructure does not include services aimed at providing patients directly with their own data. Additionally, the services are lacking a mobile element, which could work for example on a smartphone. Moreover, the EU Digital COVID certificate has increased the access and control of patients to some of their health data (including vaccination). Thus, there is a need for Member States to develop new elements and services in order to explore possible ways to provide services directly to citizens. These new services could be seen as an addition and/or extension of MyHealth@EU. In addition, the action supports the targets expressed in the Commission’s Communication ‘2030 Digital Compass: the European way for the Digital Decade’28, calling for enabling access to medical records (e-records) for 100% of Union citizens. The award of a direct grant as referred to in Article 13(5) of Regulation (EU) 2021/522 is duly justified because this action can only be carried out by Member States authorities that have the required competence and responsibility to implement the Union policies at national level. The action supports the development of the EHDS, the use of health data for the provision of healthcare and the target calling for enabling access to medical records (e-records) for 100% of Union citizens. It implements the EU4Health Programme’s general objective of ‘strengthening health systems’ (Article 3, point (d)) through the specific objectives defined in Article 4, points (f) and (g) of Regulation (EU) 2021/522. OBJECTIVES, SCOPE AND ACTIVITIES This action will enable a few pioneer Member States to design and implement this service. It would enable direct access for patients to their health data and automatically translated it into a target language used in a country of treatment. It will allow the opportunity at the same time to explore challenges for implementing this new service. This action will: (a) design and develop the proposed new service; (b) test the developed service; (c) deploy the new service in the pioneer Member States. EXPECTED RESULTS AND IMPACT Patients will be able to gain access to their health data for example by using their smartphone. The data will be translated to the language understood by the health professional in another Member State or even outside the Union. Member States will launch national projects developing or improving patient access to health data. The availability of a new mobile service offered directly to patients will create a new platform that can be dynamically expanded to support Union citizens in cases of new health threats by providing them with relevant health data and related digital tools at the point of care.