In May this year, the European Commission opened a public consultation on the European Health Data Space (EHDS). The EHDS aims to make full use of digital health to provide high-quality healthcare and reduce inequalities. It will promote access to health data for prevention, diagnosis and treatment, research and innovation, as well as for policy-making and legislation.
SIP welcomes the European Commission’s plans for the EHDS and calls for it to:
1) Permit EU institutions and national governments to develop, share, and implement instruments to assess the societal impact of pain, namely, instruments to assess pain as a quality indicator within European health systems;
2) Allow European health systems to exchange cross border data on pain measurement (via standardised EHRs and/or common tools);
3) Ensure healthcare professionals and patients receive education and training on digital technologies as part of the educational curricula and training (via promoting access to education).
At the beginning of the year, SIP, also responded to the European Commission’s Roadmap for European Health Data Space. You can read the recommendations here.
SIP will continue working on digital health over the next months and, later this year, will release our position on digital health and pain as a quality indicator.