24 Nov

In the framework of the Hungarian V4 Presidency, the Permanent Representation of Hungary to the EU organized a seminar on the digital transformation of the health systems on 23 November 2021. In the half day seminar Hungarian, Czech, Slovak and Polish experts, researchers and companies presented their best practices and efforts in this field as well as expressed their expectations for the upcoming European legislation on the European health data space.


In his opening statement H.E. Gábor Baranyai Deputy Permanent Representative of Hungary stressed that digitalisation plays a key role to increase the resilience of healthcare systems and to provide better care for patients. The COVID pandemic resulted in a digital switch in society and the acceptance of IT tools and solutions has increased in all areas of life, including health.

 

 

Therefore, the preparatory work leading to the creation European Health Data Space has been followed with great interest in the Visegrád Group, and we are looking forward to the upcoming legislative proposal of the Commission.

The participants concluded that secure data sharing, secondary use of data, artificial intelligence and high quality digital services may increase not only patient empowerment and improve care, but also contributes to research and innovation as well as higher quality of  policy making.

However, the economic differences among the Member States should be taken into consideration and it must be ensured that all Member States can benefit equally from digitalization. To reach this goal, a proper mechanism should be elaborated otherwise only the big tech companies will benefit from the developments.

 

 

With regard to the upcoming legislation on the European Health Data Space the representative of the European Commission emphasized that the new legal framework has to ensure accessibility and secure data sharing while a single market of data should be established. The new legislation will fit into the horizontal data protection legislation of the European Union.

The programme and the presentations are available at the website of the Permanent Representation clicking here.