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Standardizing data

Currently, primary care providers have full freedom to record patient symptoms, anamneses, and diagnoses in electronic health records using their own language and preferred structure. While this flexibility works for individual care, it creates challenges when we want to combine data from different patients with the same medical condition for research purposes.

To overcome this, the European Commission has introduced a common data standard: every diagnosis will be linked to a single universal code. This means that all identical diagnoses—regardless of language or format—can be connected under the same universal code. As a result, comparisons become possible, not only across Europe but worldwide. For example, lung cancer will always correspond to the same fixed code, such as 363358000, in every European country.

In short: one universal coding system will unlock consistent, comparable health data, making better research and global collaboration possible.