The Coimbra Local Health Unit (ULS) announced today the creation of a health data ecosystem for use by researchers and partners in research projects and development of algorithms for artificial intelligence.
The objective, according to a statement sent to the Lusa agency, is integration into the future European Health Data Space.
“We are often faced, in the health sector, with challenges that hinder the progress of research, putting into question the benefits for patients and communities”, highlighted the president of the board of directors of ULS, Alexandre Lourenço.
According to the administrator, these projects align with ULS Coimbra’s strategic vision of contributing to the Portuguese Health Data Ecosystem and leading the implementation of the future European Health Data Space.
At the beginning of the year, ULS in Coimbra formally joined the European Health Data and Evidence Network (EHDEN), linked to the European Medicines Agency and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry and Associations (EFPIA).
In collaboration with the Portuguese company Promptly Health, it completed the harmonization of its databases according to a common health data dictionary called OMOP, which has already been adopted by regulatory authorities in Europe, the United States of America and the United Kingdom, and by reputable healthcare organizations such as Erasmus MC in the Netherlands, the University of Oxford in England or the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.”
“Entry into the EHDEN network was the first step towards implementing the ULS Coimbra Health Data Ecosystem, which follows the pioneering model of NHS England with the introduction of Secure Data Environments in the country and aims to serve clinical teams, researchers and partners with secure access to harmonized data sets for the purposes of research and development of solutions and services based on artificial intelligence”, explained ULS.
The local health unit said that this approach will be tested with international projects such as TEF Health and GUEHDS from the TrustChain program focused on empowering health systems with the data needed to manage 21st century pandemics.
“Our active participation in the EHDEN network with the leadership of the Portuguese node and the development of TEF Health and GUEHDS are examples of our ambition to be an accelerator for the implementation of the European Health Data Space in Portugal”, stated Alexandre Lourenço.
The director considered that these collaborations place ULS of Coimbra at the forefront of a global movement to make health data accessible in a secure and privacy-preserving way, building a safe ecosystem to accelerate research, enhance the development of new therapies, with a view to improving treatments for the community.
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