Finally, the EU is forcing us to share health data

This article was originally published in the Danish online media ‘Dagens medicin’, January 2026. It's written by Mikkel Harbo, Director of Business Development, Systematic, Healthcare.

The European Health Data Space will stand as one of the most sensible EU regulations in years because it solves the fundamental problem of sharing data securely, in a structured way, and across sectors.

For years, in Denmark, we have talked about enabling shared health data between general practitioners, regions, and municipalities – but without truly succeeding.

We have elements of data sharing, but progress is too slow. Our cross platform communication is still sub optimal, and a patient's care journey is often invisible in the handover between hospital, municipality, and GP.

Now the EU is doing what no Danish reform has managed: the European Health Data Space (EHDS) requires us to share data.

It sounds bureaucratic, but it's actually brilliant.

The EHDS has three objectives. The first focuses on giving citizens access to and control over their own health data, and ensuring healthcare professionals have real-time access to data across national borders.

Additionally, it aims to enable secure reuse of health data for research, innovation, and policy decisions, whilst also creating a common European market for electronic health record systems that support data sharing and reuse.

In practice, EHDS means health data follows the citizen – even across borders.

If you're admitted to a hospital in Spain, Spanish doctors can, with your consent, access key information from your GP in Denmark, such as medication lists, allergies, diagnoses, and previous admissions. It will also be possible to access municipal information about home care or rehabilitation. Similarly, Danish doctors can view relevant data if you've received treatment in another EU country.

But it doesn't stop at the border.

Less silo thinking

In Denmark, EHDS means data must also be shared between our own sectors – between GPs, hospitals, and municipalities. When a patient is discharged from hospital, information about diagnoses, treatment, and medication must automatically flow to the GP and to the municipality's home care services. In real time.

This is precisely the connectivity we've wanted for years but have never managed to realise. EHDS doesn't just make it possible; it makes it mandatory.

Put simply, it means better health, better decisions, and less silo thinking.

The regulation will be gradually rolled out towards 2031, when all member states must be able to share core datasets from patient summaries and prescriptions to laboratory results and diagnostic imaging. It will be a big change, but also a historic enhancement of the entire digital infrastructure in healthcare.

At Systematic, we see this as an opportunity to integrate the new EU requirements with the development of the next generation of our electronic health record (EHR ), Columna CIS, which is currently used in all hospitals in Jutland and Funen, and of the care record Columna Cura, which is used in almost half of Denmark's municipalities.

Our goal is to create solutions that fully meet the new standards whilst strengthening collaboration between all Danish healthcare stakeholders.

EHDS places new demands on us as suppliers. We must deliver and maintain two core software components: an interoperability component and a logging component. The first enables systems to exchange data in a common language – like a translator ensuring different systems understand each other. The second registers who accesses which data, ensuring traceability and security.

No more centralised domain systems

Plans to establish a new shared national data platform have been overtaken by the EU and should be dropped.

EHDS is the shared data platform – it's just at a European level, with a common language, standards, and rules for access and security.

There is now an urgent need for central authorities to follow EU guidelines and establish an open, flexible, and robust infrastructure for exchanging health data in real time; effectively and securely between all relevant domain systems in hospitals, municipalities, and general practices.

It's crucial that we don't develop yet another centralised domain system with limited functionality – for example, providing only read access, as we know from Denmark’s national health record system (Sundhedsjournalen) - that cannot be integrated with domain systems' other health data and functionality supporting clinical workflows.

Instead, it should be the clinical system suppliers who take responsibility for ensuring healthcare professionals have access to future EU-standardised and cross-sectoral health data.

Suppliers must ensure health data is presented and used in accordance with domain expert roles, work situations, and the specific citizen or patient context. Exactly as we already strive for with Columna Axon, which enables secure data sharing across regions and municipalities.

If we all live up to EHDS, we'll get exactly what we want: connectivity, overview, and a healthcare system where data follows the citizen, regardless of where in the system they are.

When the dust settles, EHDS will stand as one of the most sensible EU regulations in years: a framework that creates an internal market for health data and finally gives Denmark the opportunity to solve the fundamental problem we've struggled with for decades – sharing data securely, in a structured way, and across sectors.