ECHAlliance Project Experts Co-author Paper on “Health Data Sharing Governance” in Technium Social Sciences Journal for DigitalHealthEurope (DHE) H2020 Project

The breakthrough paper presents a summary of the main conclusions drawn from 14 interviews with European experts towards the creation of European guidelines on data sharing governance models and best practices. The work undertaken was within the framework set by the DigitalHealthEurope (DHE) H2020 project on citizen-controlled data governance and data sharing, in which ECHAlliance takes an active role. 

The overall work was broad and collected different stakeholders’ opinions and visions on the theme by a large online survey, desk research and through public events, as well as a set of personal interviews, which are the specific outcome under analysis in the present article. The answers were gathered, clustered and analysed to understand the main trends, difficulties and best practices around Europe, the governance models currently in use and, in particular, how they guarantee the security and the privacy around citizens’ data in order to build and maintain trust. Also, the incentive models used to engage with citizens, considering public and private initiatives’ latest offers for consumers available on the market were studied. The key research questions underlying the process of information collection and the design of the inquiries concerned the policy and societal framework that leads to the need for citizen-centred governance models; the ways through which citizen-led data governance models, such as health cooperatives, can respond to current control challenges; lessons to be learned from data sharing initiatives that can be capitalised for health data campaigns; and finally the best practices and initiatives that may be used as reference for benchmarking, adaptation and adoption. The interviews and preliminary reports took place in 2020, accompanying the overall discussion and developments around the European Data Strategy and European Health Data Space.

To access the full paper and read all of the insights, click here. 

Discover More About H2020 Project DigitalHealthEurope (DHE)

DigitalHealthEurope is a Coordination and Support Action aimed to provide comprehensive, integrated and centralised support to initiatives on digital health and care innovation. The project’s approach involves actions that will boost innovation and advance the three Digital Single Market priorities for the digital transformation of health and care (DTHC):

• citizens’ secure access to and sharing of health data across borders
• better data to advance research, disease prevention and personalised health and care
• digital tools for citizen empowerment and person-centred care.

To achieve these three priorities, the project work plan offers two forms of support.

• Support to large scale deployment of digital solutions for person-centred integrated care: Assessment tools will be used to identify, analyse and select successful initiatives which are highly impactful and replicable. The selected initiatives will have the opportunity to pursue replication and scaling-up with the aid of instruments such as matchmaking and a twinning support scheme. A deployment support service will include guidelines, checklists and documented successful approaches as well as structured advice on EU funding instruments and financing sources. These results will contribute to capacity building. They will help define the “building blocks” for the scaling-up of innovative practices.
• Support to DTHC innovation through collaboration platforms: DigitalHealthEurope will also facilitate the creation of collaboration platforms that directly address the three above mentioned priorities for the digital transformation of health and care.