HL7 Europe held its 3rd Working Group Meeting 1-5 December in Cologne, Germany. During the week, 160 individual participants were seen, some of them for the whole week, some for one or two days.

The focus of the meeting was the work for the FHIR specifications for the priority use cases of the European Health Data Space EHDS including the Laboratory Report, the EU Core and Base Profiles, Medication, Patient Summary and Discharge Report. Many additional topics were addressed in the around 60 different sessions and tracks over the week such as EU Project Insights for I2X and MyHealth@MyHands, xShare, Hospitals on FHIR and Gravitate Health, Conformity Framework for the EHDS, Synthetic data, Terminology, an API for Health Data Spaces, Care Plans, FHIR Registries for Rare Diseases.

Whole day tracks covered the Common Cancer Model, the German FHIR and Terminology Community Day, and Imaging manifest and report.

Listen to the "State of the European Union in Digital Health" Keynote given by Henrique Martins, ICTE, Portugal, at the HL7 Europe Working Group Meeting Cologne, December 2025

HL7 Europe will convene the European digital health standards community for the next Working Group Meeting (WGM) in Cologne, Germany, 1-5 December 2025. This collaborative event will focus on advancing healthcare standards and interoperability in Europe, and bring together experts, developers, and enthusiasts to advance HL7® FHIR® specifications for the EHDS.

This webinar shows how you can be part of it, and to contribute your own ideas and suggestions. Topics and speakers will include:

• Welcome
  Michael Strübin, HL7 Europe
• Introduction, overview, agenda
  Kai Heitmann, HL7 Europe
• HL7 Europe's strategic priorities at the WGM
  Giorgio Cangioli, HL7 Europe
• Additional programme highlights
  Rutt Lindström, HL7 Europe
• Q&A
• Practicalities, social events, wrap-up
  Kai Heitmann, HL7 Europe

See also the presentation slides here.

The webinar was facilitated by Michael Strübin from HL7 Europe.

The European Health Data Space regulation is now in force and the clock is ticking for the Commission to develop and publish the implementing acts for the European Health Record Exchange Format (EEHRxF), defining the technical specifications for the transfer of health data in Europe: the deadline is March 2027. For this effort, the European Commission is aligning the efforts of Member States, Standards Development Organisations (SDOs), stakeholders and experts through EU-funded projects like xShare, i2X, or MyHealth@MyHands, and working through these communities. Of central importance is the Xt-EHR Joint Action of Commission and Member States that is tasked with delivering specifications for the Electronic Health Record Exchange Format.

In return, SDOs are prioritising their work to advance the European Health Data Space and particularly on the EHDS’s five priority categories of health data: patient summaries; electronic prescriptions; electronic dispensations; medical imaging studies and related imaging reports; medical test results, including laboratory and other diagnostic results and related reports; and discharge reports. HL7 Europe has been building an HL7 FHIR IG ecosystem for the EDHS (“IG” stands for “Implementation Guides”, the instruction manual for applying the FHIR standard) that is tailored to support the EHDS in Europe.

Robust standards and specifications require the collaboration and input of all stakeholders, and the EHDS is no exception. Xt-EHR and HL7 Europe have both launched consultations to their communities, on topics that may partly overlap. In this webinar, speakers will discuss how HL7 Europe and Xt-EHR are working together on the HL7 FHIR Implementation Guides, how the Xt-EHR logical model have been used as input for this work, and how to respond to the open consultations.

Topics and speakers will include:

• Introduction of the FHIR IG ecosystem for the EDHS
  Giorgio Cangioli, HL7 Europe
• The Xt-EHR logical model and the EEHRxF IG for ePrescription and eDispensatio
  Daniel Karlsson, Swedish eHealth agency
• The FHIR Medication Prescription and Dispense (MPD) IG
  Rutt Lindström, TEHIK, Estonia and HL7 Europe

It is co-organised with the i2X, MyHealth@MyHands, the XiA and the xShare projects.

See also the presentation slides here.

The webinar was facilitated by Michael Strübin from HL7 Europe.