Amsterdam hospitals intend to share data

The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam UMC and OLVG have initiated a new regional platform for the exchange of medical data under the name of Health Data Space Amsterdam (HDSA). The platform is intended to build new regional medical data infrastructure, for easier exchange and reuse of medical data in order to reduce regional health disparities and keep health care accessible. Today is the official signing of the intention agreement by the executive board members of the three hospitals.

Goal HDSA

The participating hospitals will build a better medical data infrastructure in the region of Amsterdam. This will lay the foundation for the improvement and acceleration of data-driven patient care in the region, as well as support for medical scientific research on health and prevention. This will significantly contribute to the shared goal of reducing health disparities in the region and maintaining accessibility of healthcare.

The initiative of the three Amsterdam hospitals stems from a broader collaboration with the University of Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Municipality of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Economic Board, and Philips.

Ymke Fokma, member of the Executive Board of the Netherlands Cancer Institute, has been involved in the creation of the collaboration from the start. Ymke: "The lack of uniform and necessary legal, ethical, and privacy frameworks and applications of standards, made it difficult to (re)use health care data from different health care providers; data was not readily available even with the explicit permission of the patient. As a result, research simply could not be done, or it would take many years. HDSA will facilitate the (re)use of health care data securely. This allows us to improve care, save costs, safeguard patient privacy, and work more efficiently. This is of great importance in times of ever-increasing healthcare costs, an aging population, and staff shortages."

Health Data Space Amsterdam continues to build on the long-standing collaboration between knowledge institutes and healthcare providers in the Amsterdam region. 12 hospitals in the Amsterdam metropolitan area, the Public Health Service, more than 450 general practitioners, and many pharmacies are exploring their options to join HDSA in the near future. This number will continue to rise over the next few years.

Trust for health care data

Through HDSA, the three hospitals are committing to the creation of a joint 'trust' for healthcare data. The data sharing platform provides a place where researchers can reuse existing pseudonymized data from regional healthcare providers. HDSA reviews the request, monitors the reuse and, when outputting healthcare data, monitors compliance with reuse agreements.

Connection with other initiatives

The collaboration in HDSA is a first step in connecting to the development of a national infrastructure through Health RI and a European collaboration through the European Health Data Space (EHDS). The hospitals are working closely with Amsterdam AI, the Amsterdam artificial intelligence partnership, and CumuluZ, a platform that is committed to a national infrastructure for sharing health care data for patient care.

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