• January 13

    • Hospital data networks as health data intermediation entities

      To respond to the time-consuming, labour-extensive, technical and legal challenges for hospitals to implement the EHDS regulation, the Belgian landscape will evolve. Several meetings were organised with representatives of the hospital data networks and the federal cabinet. These exchanges led to a clear plan to enable hospital networks to work towards official Health Data Intermediation Entities. These structures represent multiple hospitals and take on administrative and legal obligations under the EHDS.

      Their mission will be to:

      • take over the (administrative) tasks assigned by the EHDS to hospital data holders;
      • coordinate and centralise all processes related to secondary data use;
      • manage the receipt and processing of all requests regarding the re-use of data;
      • guarantee the harmonized way of working.

      This approach is in line with existing projects such as Spectre-HD or existing infrastructures such as those of INAH.

      The networks will act as a single point of contact for EHDS requests, and they will organise internal coordination between hospitals, manage public requests and open data access, and centralise administrative burdens. Specific working groups will be set up in 2026 to determine the operational details on a task-by-task basis to define technical and juridical needs and challenges.