I’ve written numerous times about the potential for health data to improve not only our own health but healthcare services, public health, and medical research.  Unfortunately, the last few years have seen precious little progress in unifying the numerous sources of health data into a single, secure source to chronicle our health on a daily basis.

A slither of light has emerged in the Netherlands, however, where the Health Data Portal is being developed by the Technical University of Eindhoven to support the exchange of medical data between institutions for the first time.

The platform, which is due to launch midway through this year, has been developed with the help of Philips, Máxima Medisch Centrum, and the Kempenhaeghe Expertise Centre.

“We see that researchers like to use information that comes from different sources. For example, if you want to investigate the link between cardiovascular disease and a difficult pregnancy, you need data from different domains. This will lead to breakthroughs in healthcare,” the team explains.

“In practice, no system has yet been developed for this, so that PhD students spend more time arranging and collecting data than on the actual research. We want to change that. The challenge here is great, because you have to deal with the ethics, privacy and legal aspects of different types of institutes.”

Regional rollout

The platform is originally planned to be rolled out regionally before scaling up across a range of disciplines.  The project is part of a wider public-private initiative, called Health_RI, which was awarded €69 million from the National Growth Fund for the venture in 2021.

“We are now taking up the gauntlet and can share our architecture and experiences with other institutions and hubs. By subsequently linking all the Health-RI nodes together, a large ecosystem is created,” the team explains. “The idea is that this will eventually lead to a nationwide umbrella system, which will also involve frontline parties and even commercial organizations such as pharmacists.”

“After all, we know that data analytics will play an increasingly important role in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of almost all conditions, controlling costs and improving care. So the importance of this system and the objective of realizing a national integrated health data infrastructure is clear to everyone.”