Digitalisation and data exchange

Digitalisation and electronic data exchange are essential conditions to keep healthcare accessible and affordable. But they must be more than just accessible and affordable. With the right information in the right place at the right moment, healthcare becomes better and safer, the work pressure of the healthcare providers can be reduced, and patients can have more control over their own care, so they will not have to visit their care provider in person as often. In addition, the digital unlocking of healthcare data can contribute to better medical-scientific research.

The umcs form a powerful driver of knowledge, research and innovation. Given their important function as a regional catalyst, umcs are tasked with ensuring that the innovations can be applied successfully elsewhere. This includes the field of digitalisation. Digital data exchange was specified in 2019 as one of the societal challenges for the umcs to solve, and continues to be one, including within the IZA, with the NFU as a catalyst.

Projects and pathways

The umcs are working on various digitalisation initiatives, from apps for patients to the exchange of patient data. They are regional, working together with other umcs, or for example in the Citrien e-health programme and Health-RI.

For this challenge, the NFU has set up the Digitalisation Dedicated Group. It focusses on, for example, the “Unity of Language” and the European Health Data Space (EHDS). Another of its tasks is CumuluZ. It has been agreed in the IZA that by 2025, all residents of the Netherlands will have digital access to their own healthcare data through a personal healthcare environment. CumuluZ must make this possible.

CumuluZ

CumuluZ is a platform that aims to collect the healthcare data from all source registration systems into one national network of regional data hubs. This platform must give patients and care providers access to all available information required for the provision of care: a lifetime dossier, patient-oriented with all healthcare data over the entire lifetime. CumuluZ can also make anonymised healthcare data available for scientific research, which will contribute to affordable and accessible care in the future.