EU is currently working on harmonised legislation on health data. Funding for the promotion of secondary data use was fully granted to Findata.
“The funding decision is very good news for Findata and the Finnish research infrastructure as a whole. The EU funding will bring significant additional resources for the development of our services and will enable Finland to join the European health data space,” says Johanna Seppänen, Director of Findata.
The FinHITS project, which will be launched with the funding decision will run for four years. It has a total budget of 2.5 million euros, of which 40 % is self-financed.
European Commission supports Member States in harmonising secondary use of health data
The funding will support EU countries in the cross-border secondary use of health data. This follows the European Commission’s proposal for a Regulation on the European Health Data Space (EHDS), adopted in May 2022.
The proposal aims to promote the use of health data to improve healthcare, research, innovation and decision-making, and to help people manage their own health data.
A total of 37 million euros was available for Member States to promote country-specific health data services.
Development work benefits the whole ecosystem
“The FinHITS project focuses on the development of services that are central to our operations, such as the e-service, the national data catalogue and Kapseli environment,” says Maari Parkkinen, Development Manager at Findata.
One of the most important areas of development is the information system that will connect not only Findata’s services but also its customers and the registrars who maintain the data.
“For example, describing the data to be retrieved and the related advice is usually a collaboration between a number of different parties, which would be greatly facilitated by a portal available to everyone,” says Parkkinen.
In addition, the funding will continue the ongoing HealthData@EU pilot project and work related to ready-made datasets. The implementation of the EHDS includes improving efficiency, ensuring data security and developing technical solutions for the cross-border exchange of information between Member States.
Contact:
Read more:
- Findata participates in the HealthData@EU pilot project aiming to harmonise the secondary use of health data
- European Commission: European Health Data Space (health.ec.europa.eu)
- Sub-sections for the funding call of the EU4Health Programme (PDF file, 1338 kb)
- HealthData@EU Pilot (ehds2pilot.eu)
What is Findata?
- Launched in 2020, Findata is the data permit authority for the social and health care sector. Findata’s work is based on the Act on the Secondary Use of Health and Social Data, which entered into force in 2019.
- Among other things, Findata grants data permits for scientific research, statistics and official reporting duties. In addition to granting permits, it combines and pre-processes the data.
- Findata’s aim is to improve the information security of data sets containing health and social data and to enable the more efficient use of these sets.
- Findata operates in conjunction with the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare but separately from the Institute’s other activities.