Country factsheets

TEHDAS work package 4 (WP4) aims to reach out and engage with national and international stakeholders, to reflect on their needs and expectations for the future European Health Data Space (EHDS). In particular, Task 4.1 carried out a mapping exercise among Member States (MS), to provide an overview of national health data management systems and their readiness to join the EHDS. This mapping exercise took place in the form of country visits, in which national stakeholders working with health data or exchanging health data were interviewed. Making use of the diversity in Europe, 12 countries were visited.
This document starts by presenting the methodology used to carry out the country visits. The first step was the development of the TEHDAS mapping tool (i.e., guiding questions to be asked during the interviews), based on existing tools and methodologies for health information system assessment. The countries to be mapped were selected through a call for expression of interest among TEHDAS partner countries. The country visits themselves followed a 5-step methodology: stakeholder selection, preparatory desk review, semi-structured interviews, multi-stakeholder meeting, and dissemination of results.
Thereafter, the results from the 12 country visits are presented in the form of factsheets. The factsheets summarise the key findings from each country, grouped under the themes of the TEHDAS mapping tool: data collections; data quality; data infrastructure (including storage, access procedures and interoperability); data governance; resources (human, financial and technical); and capacity building. Each factsheet then reflects on the country’s preparedness to join the EHDS for secondary use, including the political will and needs and expectations.
Finally, this deliverable provides guidelines on how the methodology developed for the TEHDAS country visits should be further used. It is important to note that countries’ health data management systems are rapidly changing, and an iterative process should be used to take account of relevant developments.