(16 October 2017) In the last months, the European Commission has launched a public consultation on the transformation of health and care in the Digital Single Market. This consultation is aimed at investigating whether there is the need for policy measures that will promote digital innovation for better health and care in Europe. The consultation will feed into a new Policy Communication to be adopted by the end of 2017. EPSU participated in the consultation highlighting the need for an EU framework to protect the privacy of patients and workers against any commercialisation and commodification of big data information. The ongoing growth of big data markets that sell patient’s information on treatments and diagnoses to insurance and pharma industries without neither specific regulation nor patient consent is unacceptable. Therefore EPSU calls for an effective EU-wide regulation in sharing big data in the health sector complementary to the the General Data Protection Regulation that can also support health workers to provide proper treatment without infringements to patients’ health data.
Further to this, social dialogue is fundamental in preparing the correct introduction of new tools and technologies related to research and treatment of health data in hospitals and other care institutions.
You can read EPSU response to the consultation here
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