Europe & International

Enhancing France's commitment to European eHealth initiatives.

 

 

The European Commission drew up a draft regulation aimed at establishing a European Health Data Space (EHDS) to guarantee citizens' access to their health data, facilitate patient care across Europe, and create a common framework for research and innovation.

Initiatives such as MyHealth@EU are being put in place to achieve these objectives, giving healthcare professionals access to the medical data of European patients and facilitating the cross-border exchange of medical information. France’s contribution is the service Sesali, deep-dive into this service and the other european initiatives.

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A Key Regulation for the European Data Strategy

The European Commission has proposed a draft regulation aimed at establishing a European Health Data Space (EHDS) for:

  • Guaranteeing citizens access to their health data;
  • Ensuring continuity of care, by allowing healthcare professionals direct access to the health data of patients under their care, with the patient's consent, immediately, under secure conditions, free of charge and in the language of the healthcare professional, whatever European country the patient resides in;
  • Creating a common framework at European level for the re-use of health data for research, innovation and policy-making purposes, with a single request for access, a European data and metadata catalogue, and under secure conditions.


This draft regulation therefore includes a section on primary use of health data (MyHealth@EU), a section on secondary use of health data (HealthData@EU) and a certification section (single market access for software publishers, digital MDs, and applications).

Get to know our activities

The Agency committed to the Health@EU program!

The ANS has long been commited in European initiatives in digital health. After the COVID-19 health crisis, the EU4Health program was set up by the European Commission with the aim of supporting the actions of European health authorities for 2021-2027 of which the ANS is a part.

 

Published on March 26, 2021, the “EU for Health” or “EU4Health” program aims to significantly contribute to the post-COVID-19 recovery plan through strengthening the resilience of health systems and promoting innovation. This is thanks to the provision of 5.1 billion euros for the period 2021-2027, a budget more than ten times higher than that of previous health programs.

Towards a European Semantic Interoperability

France has chosen to commit to the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) terminology, within the European dynamic, aiming in particular to enable the construction of the future European health data space, a strategic axis of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

It does this with co-financing from the European Union and subject to the contractual and legal finalization of the ongoing negotiations between France and the SNOMED International association.

The ANS in charge of the WHO-France Collaborating Center

The French Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the Family of International Classifications (ccWHO FCI) has the main objectives of developing, disseminating and promoting in France the use of international classifications produced by the WHO. The center thus plays a key role in the maintenance, implementation both from the point of view of deployment and development of uses, and the translation into French of the classifications which are:

  • the International Classification of Diseases (ICD),
  • the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF),
  • the International Classification of Health Interventions (ICHI).

The center, under the supervision of the WHO, belongs to the network of collaborating centers. The objective of the network is to share knowledge and good practices in the field of health classifications.

Concerning the deployment of the CIM 11, this network also allows the pooling of resources (e.g.: French-speaking translations and the development of training modules for the French-speaking world). The French collaborating center is also involved in improving the structuring of information in the electronic patient file and the development of terminological bridges between WHO Classifications and Complementary Terminologies, to better meet the digital needs of health professionals, in the production of care, and epidemiologists, in data exploitation.

In France, the Sesali service

Discover the service in 3 minutes

In France, the entry point for data from the MyHealth@EU programme is Sesali. The Sesali service allows you to consult a European patient summary securely, in a structured way and in French, in just a few clicks! Sesali currently uses data from the Patient Summary section, and work is underway to enable it to collect e-Prescriptions documents as well.

The service is available to healthcare professionals directly on the website www.sesali.fr

And for eHealth companies, its API is available for incorporating into software on the industry portal.

On the European Pathway

The digital health roadmap now integrates current European programs to which the Digital Health Agency and its partners contribute.

Discover the international dimension in the chapter “The European Health Data Space (MaSanté@UE and Sesali)” of the digital health doctrine (page 57, french content).

This chapter covers the essential elements, namely: The European Health Data Space, the presentation of benefits through use cases with MyHealth@EU and the Sesali portal. As well as the associated ambitions and planning.

The MyHealth@EU programme

What objectives ? 

 

The aim is to facilitate the exchange of European citizens’ health data as part of their care pathway, by giving healthcare professionals access in their own language to the medical data of the patient they are caring for.

How ?

 

The MyHealth@EU European trust network connects Member States via their national e-health contacts. Access to citizens' health data is provided via these contacts, through European interoperability for care pathway data.

What about France ?

 

In France, the ANS is this contact and therefore the entry point for the MyHealth@EU services. To this end, the ANS is implementing the Sesali.fr service and its API for healthcare software, which currently enables healthcare professionals to connect and consult the medical summary of a patient from another European Union country.

Use Cases and European Guidelines

Patient Summary

The use case enables a query to be made to the cross-border data so that the European equivalent of a synthèse médicale (Patient Summary) can be consulted for patient care and clinical sections, such as allergies and adverse reactions, active diseases and current treatments, treatment history, medical and surgical history, vaccine records.

e-Prescribing and dispensing medicines

The aim of this use case is to support the prescribing and dispensing process through the exchange of supporting data for patients travelling within Europe. A patient with an e-Prescription will be able to pick up medicines in the country where they are being treated.

Laboratory results

The aim of this guideline is to share lab results: From the home country to the country of treatment From the country of treatment to any healthcare professional

Medical imaging documents

The aim of this guideline is to share medical imaging results and reports From the home country to the country of treatment From the country of treatment to any healthcare professional

Hospital discharge letters

The use case enables a query to be made to the cross-border data so that the patient's hospital discharge letters can be consulted. These are very comprehensive clinical documents that provide a detailed history of the diagnoses, treatments, and procedures carried out during the hospital stay.

Decision-making at the european level

The European Commission coordinates the eHealth Network, which it co-chairs with one of the Member States.

The aim of the eHealth network is to guide e-health policy in Europe. It meets twice a year to discuss strategic and operational issues. The network is divided into semantic and technical sub-groups, which propose guidelines/standards that will then be used in the member states.

The guidelines adopted in this way are then applied to exchanges within the framework of MyHealth@EU, and therefore consumed by the equivalent of Sesali in each Member State.

In France, publishers can connect to the Sesali API to access the features offered by the service.

The guidelines are also intended to be incorporated into national interoperability frameworks to enable end-to-end data exchange. Decisions taken at the European level therefore have an impact on the French system.

Accelerating eHealth throughout Europe

Deep-dive into the creation of a trusted system of data exchange and governance, infrastructure and interoperability to better serve the patients. From strategic to operational commitments, discover our main European & International eHealth initiatives and projects.

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