Sharing Health Data  – across borders and beyond

The European Health Data Space (EHDS) is the EU’s framework for how health data moves across borders. In force since March 2025, the regulation creates two pillars: primary use, giving patients stronger control over their own electronic health records and continuity of care when they travel or move within the EU, and secondary use, enabling researchers, innovators, and policymakers to access pooled health data under strict governance.

What does this mean for the Nordic countries? Together with VALO2, the Norwegian Directorate of Health and the Ministry of Health from the Netherlands, we set the stage for an innovation and data driven future of healthcare.

VALO2 is a concrete, Nordic-level demonstration of what that ambition looks like in practice. Building on the Nordic University Hospital Alliance, the project uses the OMOP common data model to harmonize and analyze health data across university hospitals in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and beyond — starting with a pilot on metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer. Instead of waiting for every EU mechanism to be finalized, VALO2 shows how standardized data models and cross-institutional trust can already let researchers compare outcomes and accelerate innovation across national lines.

Sharing data – the road ahead
v/Sylvia van Laar, Senior policy officer semantic interoperability at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport in The Netherlands

Sylvia van Laar senior policy officer semantic interoperability at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport in The Netherlands.

Van der Laars current work focusses on the European Electronic Health Record exchange Format, and a strategy for IDMP (Identification of Medicinal Products). 

Norway and the EHDS
v/Ole Norberg Gjerrestad, Policy Officer Digital Health, European Commission

Ole Norberg Gjerrestad, Policy Officer Digital Health i European Commission

A direct update from Brussels.

The Nordics and EHDS
v/Sofia Peltola, Specialist at the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra

Sofia Peltola, specialist at the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitr

Peltola works in the coordination team of two international health data projects, TEHDAS2 and VALO, which advance the implementation of the European Health Data Space.

Moderator: Line Andreassen Sæle, Virksomhetsarkitekt, Folkehelseinstituttet