EHDS: Boosting digital literacy crucial for success of EU health data plan

With almost half of Europeans lacking digital skills, there is an urgent need to boost digital literacy if the European Health Data Space (EHDS), set to be launched in 2025, is to be a success.

The EHDS, proposed by the European Commission in May 2022 and expected to move into the final stretch of interinstitutional negotiations this autumn, aims to “empower” citizens to use their health data while improving health care and health research.

However, there is a fundamental need to improve digital literacy across the continent for it to work. The European Commission itself estimates that 42% of Europeans lack basic digital skills. While a number of EU initiatives have been launched to improve these skills, organisations such as the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) warn that more action is needed – particularly in relation to the EHDS.

“Simply having access to technology without understanding how to use it will not allow patients to make use of their electronic health records and make decisions about whom they are shared with,” EPHA writes.

In other words, a lack of digital skills could mean many Europeans would fall behind and lose out on opportunities for better health care.

According to a new report published on Tuesday (5 September) by the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) European office, there is a need for “urgent investment, innovation, and inclusion to reap the rewards digital health has to offer”.

Only 27 of the 53 countries in the WHO European region have policies and strategies to improve digital health literacy, the report found. As health systems become increasingly digitised, this could deepen the already serious health inequalities existing both between and within countries.

“Digital exclusion is a major driver of inequality and can lead to poor health outcomes,” the report reads, mentioning “ageing-related challenges” as a big challenge for the WHO European Region.

“It is a sad irony that people with limited or no digital skills are often the ones who stand to gain the most from digital health tools and interventions – like older persons or rural communities. Addressing this imbalance is necessary for the digital transformation of the health sector,” WHO Europe’s regional director Hans Kluge said.

There are particularly high hopes for the effect digitisation could have on rural areas, many of which are described as medical deserts, where people’s access to healthcare is significantly lower than in the more populated regions.

The report’s three main recommendations to strengthen health systems’ digital solutions are access to reliable and affordable broadband, security surrounding health data, and interoperable digital health tools.

Healthcare professionals face the test of catching up with digitalisation

As 2023 is the European year of skills, one question inevitably springs to mind: Is the healthcare sector ready to upskill and unlock advancements in digital technologies? 

Making digital health work for everyone

One way of making digital health systems more inclusive and taking digital literacy into account is making sure to include less digitally literate people in the development.

“Perhaps we should work a little bit more on involving them, building systems with them, and asking them what they need and what they want,” said Manuel Pizarro, Portuguese minister of health, at a WHO event on 5-6 September with fellow ministers from the Netherlands, Greece, and Armenia.

For Dutch health minister Ernst Kuiper, making patients one of the “leading forces” in developing digital health solutions is an important part of a “smart” approach to digital health.

“It can actually help us reduce the major acceleration in spending in healthcare,” Kuiper said, adding that digital solutions done right can significantly reduce the amount of administrative work for healthcare workers.

For a health workforce under major pressure across Europe, less administrative work is surely welcome. Digital tools could eventually also be a benefit in areas where there is a lack of medical staff.

Additionally, it gives a push for timely health checks, in turn reducing the pressure on healthcare systems, as an example from Greece, given by Eirini Agapidaki, alternate health minister of Greece, has shown.

Preliminary data for a new breast cancer screening programme in the country has shown that women who got a digital prescription to receive a mammogram were much more likely to get screened than those who received everything on paper the traditional way.

“It’s easier to attend the preventive programs and have your screening in a timely manner [with digital tools],” Agapidaki said.

[Edited by Giedrė Peseckytė/Nathalie Weatherald]

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Welcome back to EURACTIV's Health Brief. With only a short legislative stretch left, the greatest (or the most controversial) health files remain for the final episodes: pharmaceutical strategy and the European Health Data Space (EHDS).