HELT 2024

HEALTH(Y) AI & DATA: BRIDGING INNOVATION AND REGULATION

Brussels, 25 April 2024

AI-driven processes represent an important tool for innovation in healthcare and related research, These technologies have allowed new methods of diagnosis, treatment, and research to be envisaged and developed. In addition, AI-based tools are allowing traditional administrative and management processes to be refined, saving resources and improving efficiency. Whilst having immense potential, such changes do not come without concerns. The widespread use of AI has traditionally become associated with problems relating to robustness, fairness and bias. In the domain of healthcare and related research, the potential for harm related to such concerns is in many cases amplified. Furthermore, many are worried about the intrusion of questionable commercial practices or the potential for increased concentration of economic power.

Following on the success of HELT 2023, the VUB’s Health & Ageing Law Lab (HALL) will explore these themes in this second edition of the HELT symposium. It will invite speakers and representative stakeholders across healthcare and research ecosystems, allowing the multidisciplinary nature of these issues to be explored.

Link: https://hall.research.vub.be/helt-symposiums/helt-2024

 

HELT 2023

HEALTH DATA SHARING IN AN INTERCONNECTED SOCIETY

Brussels, 26 April 2023

Our increasingly digitised and connected society is driving the transformation of the health sector and the individual experiences and perceptions of healthcare. Increases in the ability to share data, in computing power and the ability to apply ever more complex forms of processing to health data are changing our very understanding of what health data is and how it should be used. Trends that were considered aspirational or futuristic such as remote healthcare, personalised medicine, AI-based medical devices and big data health research are becoming entrenched. Technological change means that everyday more health data is being generated and stored. Demand for health data for scientific research is also rapidly increasing.

Health data governance is becoming a special case in the landscape of EU data policy and data protection legal framework. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) already sets out extra constraints on the processing of health data as ‘special categories of personal data’ and importantly many Member States have availed themselves of the discretion to granted by the GDPR to introduce further conditions for processing health data. This has led to a continued fragmentation in terms of the regulatory picture.

Efforts can be seen from the European Union to remove the barriers to the free flow of health data and thus unleash its potential. This includes a proposal of the European Health Data Space (EHDS) in May 2022 as the first sectorial legislation for data governance, aiming to enhance individual control of their health data and build an effective mechanism for accessing health data for innovation, research and policymaking.

 

The first HELT (HEalth, Law, and Technology) symposium in 2023 will centre around the notion of ‘health data sharing in an interconnected society’. The symposium will be organised under the auspices of Health & Ageing Law Lab (HALL). HALL is located at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. Our goal is to generate conversations between different stakeholders, including policy makers, academics, regulators, healthcare professionals, scientific researchers and data subjects on the challenges of sharing of health data and the potential impact initiatives such as the proposed European Health Data Space will create.

Link: https://hall.research.vub.be/helt-symposiums/helt-2023