A joint EU health scheme enabling Luxembourg residents to access notes and medical data from appointments held in another country in the bloc will not be fully operational by the end of the decade, the health ministry has said.
The European Health Data Space regulation (EHDS) is already being rolled out by several member states and was unveiled in Luxembourg in a joint announcement by Health Minister Martine Deprez and Minister for Digitisation Stéphanie Obertin last month.
The ministers pointed out that its implementation will take place in a phased manner – but the timing of many of the changes remain unclear, and the health ministry has now said some measures will only take effect up to two years after the initial March 2029 deadline for full implementation of the regulation across the bloc.
“By 26 March 2029, measures foreseen in the regulation related to patient summaries, electronic prescriptions, electronic dispensations will have to be implemented,” a health ministry spokesperson told the Luxembourg Times by email. “For the remaining categories [such as] medical imaging, medical reports, discharge letters: this will have to be done before 26 March 2031.”
One of the most anticipated parts of the EHDS will be the ability to obtain prescription medicines across the EU with equal ease to being at home. A key requirement for this will the transition from paper prescriptions to electronic. “At present, it is too early to be able to announce a specific date when this measure will be implemented in Luxembourg,” the ministry spokesperson said.
As well as personal data, accessible to patients and their healthcare providers across the EU, the EHDS also covers anonymous health data that will require bulletproof data security, but which will also boost research, the ministry said. “Wider access to anonymised data will certainly also create important benefits to our national research and innovation sectors and strengthen ongoing initiatives such as those in the field of digital health technologies or personalised medicine,” the health ministry spokesperson added.