Establishment of parts of the health data access body in the Slovak Republic

• Title of the project: Establishing parts of Health Data Access Body in Slovak republic (HeDAB-SK) - Establishing parts of the Health Data Access Body in the Slovak Republic
• Name and registered office of the beneficiary: National Health Information Centre, Lazaretská 26, 811 09 Bratislava
• Place of implementation of the project: Dunajská 68, 811 09 Bratislava
• Co-financing: European Health and Digital Executive Agency
• Amount of grant awarded: 972 587,20 EUR
• Amount of NCZI funding: 302 839,96 EUR
• Duration of the project: 01/2024 - 11/2027

What will Health Data Access Bodies (HDABs) bring?

• better healthcare outcomes – helps identify trends, best practices, improve patient care and develop new treatments
• advances in medical research – promotes scientific discoveries and a deeper understanding of diseases
• stronger public health policies – helping to track disease outbreaks, assess risk factors and inform decision-making
• stronger public health policies – helping to track disease outbreaks, assess risk factors and inform decision-making.

More about HDAB in the video below, video opens on Vimeo:


EU Health Data Space Regulation (EHDS) - Overview for Health Data Access Bodies (HDABs) on Vimeo

Reuse of health data - European Commission

Workgroups where NCZI actively participates:

WP1: Management and Coordination

The NCZI manages the project throughout the period (1-48 months), focusing on the cross-border use of health data under the EHDS Regulation. The national framework oversees both national and cross-border activities and contributes to the management of HealthData@EU. It coordinates work packages, monitors progress and defines project objectives.

WP2: Dissemination, Training and Support

Under the NCZI guidance (1-48 months), information campaigns, training and support for citizens, data holders and users are implemented. Educational materials and a helpdesk will be developed in accordance with the EHDS and the decisions of the managing authority.

WP3: Evaluation of the project

NCZI assesses the performance of digital capacities over 1-48 months. It sets and tracks indicators, evaluates efficiency and identifies areas for improvement.

WP4: Sustainability of the outcomes of the project.

NCZI ensures the long-term sustainability of digital capacities (1-48 months). It develops a sustainability and continuity plan to ensure that they remain operational after funding has ended.

WP5: National Data Access Applications management solution

NCZI leads the development of DAAM for the Slovak Access Authority (1-45 months). The analysis, pilot testing and deployment phases of a solution to process data access requests are ongoing.

WP6: National Health Dataset Catalogue for health data

NCZI creates a catalogue for Slovakia (1-45 months) in three phases: analysis and design, pilot implementation and launch of public access to datasets.

WP7: Cross-border gateway to connect with the HealthData@EU infrastructure

NCZI implements the connection of Slovakia to HealthData@EU (1-45 months). The project includes the design of a national connector, a pilot phase of testing and the launch of a gateway for the cross-border use of data.

WP8: Health data quality enhancement

NCZI leads the development of tools to improve data quality (1-45 months). After analysis and piloting, a publicly available tool will be launched to support data holders in improving data quality.

SPECIFIC MILESTONES

In terms of specific mandatory milestones, at the end of the project’s implementation period, HDABs are expected to have in place appropriate infrastructure for secondary uses of health data, including the necessary digital business capabilities. On the basis of the analysis of needs, the following milestones are included in this project:

• Milestone 1: management system to record and process data access applications, issue data permits and reply to data access applications made by data users;
• Milestone 2: publicly available catalogue of national datasets including tools and descriptions to facilitate their discovery and use for secondary use;
• Milestone 3: digital gateway to connect with other authorized participants and with the core services of the EHDS infrastructure for secondary uses of health data (HealthData@EU);
• Milestone 4: initiatives targeting the enhancing the quality of electronic health data made available through the HDAB.

Objective	Indicator	Baseline	Target
	Indicators to Objective 1
1	Number of health data access bodies (HDAB) established in SR.	1	1
2	Number of HDABs in SR that are able to receive, process, and reply to data access applications.	1	1
3	Number of data access applications processed by HDABs established in SR per month.	5	7
4	Number of data access applications that the HDABs established in SR have processed per month.	5	7
5	Average time to process a data access application per HDAB.	3 months	< 2 months
	Indicators to Objective 2
6	Number of HDABs in SR that have a dataset catalogue publicly available per country.	0	1
7	Number of fully operational datasets that have been published in the dataset catalogue per country.	20	30
8	Number of HDABs providing secure processing environments to data users.	0	0
	Indicators to Objective 3
9	Number of HDABs in SR connected to HealthData@EU infrastructure.	0	1
10	Number of HDABs in SR that are able to send, receive, and process multi-country cross-border health data access applications through the cross-border infrastructure for secondary uses.	0	1
	Indicators to Objective 4
11	Number of HDABs offering tools and services to address data privacy as part of the secure processing environments.	0	1
12	List of tools available for enhancing data quality.	NO	YES
13	Are the datasets semantically and technically interoperable?	NO	YES, including cross-border and following