European Health Data Space Regulation

(87) Cooperation and work are ongoing between different professional organisations, the Commission and other institutions to set up minimum data fields and other characteristics of different datasets, for instance registries. That work is more advanced in areas such as cancer, rare diseases, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, risk factor assessment and statistics, and should be taken into account when defining new standards and disease-specific harmonised templates for structured data elements. However, many datasets are not harmonised, raising comparability issues and making cross-border research difficult. Therefore, more detailed rules should be set out in implementing acts to ensure a harmonised coding and registration of electronic health data to enable the supply of such data for secondary use in a consistent way. Such datasets could include data from registries of rare diseases, orphan drugs databases, cancer registries and registries of highly relevant infectious diseases. Member States should work towards ensuring that European electronic health systems and services and interoperable applications deliver sustainable economic and social benefits, with a view to achieving a high level of trust and security, enhancing continuity of healthcare and ensuring access to safe and high-quality healthcare. Existing health data infrastructures and registries can provide models that are useful for defining and implementing data standards and interoperability and should be leveraged to enable continuity and to build on existing expertise.