Clifford Chance

Tech group partner Gunnar Sachs and Carolin Kemmner moderated a panel 'Learning from health data: Opportunities and challenges on the way to individualized medicine' at the  Digital Health Conference in Berlin. 

Here are their key take-aways:

• Health data is one of the most crucial key drivers for digital innovation in the healthcare sector.

• The progress of digitalisation in healthcare depends on whether we succeed in striking the right balance between the opposing interests in health data use, data protection, data security and generating a benefit for patients.

• The European Health Data Space (EHDS) is a unique opportunity to establish an EU-wide infrastructure for health data, to enhance and standardise quality of data and for Europe to become an innovation driver for the digitalisation of healthcare.

• Also at national level, we need to set the scene now for the EHDS and drive forward related national projects such as the electronic health record (EPA), to ensure that we will be able to fully exploit all opportunities offered by the EHDS across Europe.

• Germany has the technical and scientific capacities to become the leader for digitalisation of healthcare. However, innovation is often still being held back by regulation on both European and national level. Legislators, industry and patient associations will have to join forces to clear the way for an innovation-friendly regulatory environment.