The European Health Data Space Regulation went into force last month and over the coming years will require national European healthcare systems to increasingly process and transfer health data according to common specifications, to enable interoperability across and within Member States. Developing these specifications will require a significant effort and collaboration of the Commission and Member States with Standards developing organisations, working with healthcare organisations, industry, stakeholders and technical experts. Among the EHDS regulation’s six priority categories of health data will be data from laboratory systems, which enable diagnostic decisions and help healthcare professionals and patients manage chronic conditions.

In our HL7 Europe “Labs-on-FHIR” webinar series, we looked this month at the experience of Spain. With its 18 regional healthcare systems, the experience of Spain in connecting diverse healthcare systems may offer some instructive lessons for the rest of Europe. With more than 90 percent of its citizens having access to their patient summaries, Spain is among the more digitally advanced EU Member States. Spain also played a significant role in shaping the EHDS regulation to ensure its provisions are realistic and manageable for providers and manufacturers during its Presidency of the EU Council.

Featured speaker was Dr. Alexander Zlotnik from the Directorate of Digital Health and Information Systems in the Spanish Ministry of Health. He shared an overview of the Spanish healthcare system, discussed the history and status of laboratory systems’ interoperability within Spain and with Europe, and reflected on the EHDS regulation’s development and implementation. As usual, there was a panel of experts, and plenty of time for audience Q&A.

Panellists included:

• Catherine Chronaki, HL7 Europe
• Alexander Henket, NICTIZ (NL)
• Nikos Kyriakoulakos, HL7 Hellas

See also the presentation slides here.

The webinar was facilitated by Michael Strübin from HL7 Europe.