The landscape of European healthcare is currently undergoing a massive digital transition following the implementation of the European Health Data Space (EHDS), which officially entered into force in March 2025. For decades, medical data across Europe was trapped in isolated silos. Hospitals used different software, countries spoke different languages, and patients were often forced to act as their own medical couriers, carrying physical folders and CDs from one specialist to another.
The EHDS was designed to solve this exact problem. While the long-term goal is to have fully integrated, borderless medical care driven by advanced data analysis, it is important to separate the futuristic vision from the reality on the ground today. Here is a grounded look at how your health data is currently managed, how you can access it right now, and what the new EU regulations will actually change in the near future.
The Reality
We are not yet at the point where every hospital in Europe has instant, seamless access to your entire medical history. The digital transition of 27 different national healthcare systems is happening step by step. Currently, the backbone of cross-border data sharing is the existing European infrastructure called MyHealth@EU.
This is the network that technically allows a hospital system in Spain or Italy to “talk” to the Central Health Information System of the Republic of Croatia (CEZIH). Instead of transferring your entire medical file, MyHealth@EU focuses on transferring essential, life-saving information. It translates key medical data, such as your “Patient Summary” (which includes allergies, current medications, and major past surgeries) and e-Prescriptions, into the language of the receiving doctor. This ensures that if you end up in an emergency room while on vacation, the local doctors can treat you safely without language barriers.
For Croatian citizens, accessing personal health data is already functional and highly practical. Here is how it currently works via your smartphone:
- Health Portal (via the e-Građani system): This is the main access point for Croatian citizens. You simply open a web browser on your phone, go to the e-Građani portal, and log in (using apps like Certilia or a bank token).
- What you can see there: Inside the “Health Portal,” you can view your e-Prescriptions, e-Referrals, laboratory results, hospital discharge letters, and vaccination details.
The Future Expectation: The EUDI Wallet
While the EHDS regulation is now active, upgrading IT systems across 27 member states will take a few years. The true end of carrying physical medical folders will arrive with the full rollout of digital identity systems.
According to EU plans, which are currently being rapidly deployed, citizens will soon have an “EU Digital Wallet” on their smartphones. Through this app, you will be able to directly grant a foreign doctor permission to access your “Patient Summary” from the Croatian system, ensuring you are in complete control of who sees your data.
Innovation and Secondary Data Use
Beyond improving everyday personal care (known as the primary use of data), the EHDS framework strictly regulates the “secondary use” of health data. This is arguably the most revolutionary aspect of the regulation. Advanced medical models and predictive algorithms require massive amounts of data to learn how to identify diseases earlier and more accurately.
In Croatia, the ecosystem for this kind of innovation is already being built. A prime example is the AI4Health.Cro project. In March 2026, they launched a major national innovation challenge aimed at developing digital tools to help manage Type 2 diabetes. By providing local startups and researchers with a secure framework to access vast amounts of real-world medical data, theoretical concepts can be turned into practical clinical tools. These tools can analyze blood sugar trends and predict potential complications, ultimately easing the burden on the healthcare system.
What About GDPR and Patient Privacy?
With all this data sharing, the most common question remains: Is my medical information safe? The answer is a definitive yes. The EHDS is strictly aligned with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), ensuring privacy remains a fundamental right.
When researchers, institutions, or companies request health data to train digital models for secondary use, they never receive names, home addresses, or any personal identifiers. Instead, the data goes through rigorous processes:
- Anonymization: Completely stripping the data of any link to the individual.
- Pseudonymization: Replacing identifying information with artificial identifiers (codes), which can only be reversed under incredibly strict, legally defined circumstances.
Algorithms learn from broad medical patterns, such as how a specific tumor looks on thousands of MRI scans, not from individual identities. Any attempt to deliberately re-identify a patient carries severe legal and financial penalties. Ultimately, the EHDS proves that we can modernize medicine, fuel innovation, and save lives without compromising our personal privacy.
For clarity under EHDS: patients retain the right to restrict access to their electronic health data for primary use, including granular control over which healthcare professionals can view specific parts of their record. Member States may also introduce an opt-out for cross-border data exchange, while national digital health systems remain fully operational and continue to store and process patient data domestically. In addition, secondary use of health data is only permitted for strictly defined purposes under a regulated permit system, with explicit prohibitions on uses such as marketing or decisions that could harm individuals. Individuals can opt out of secondary use in a simple and reversible way, although limited exceptions for important public interest purposes may still apply under strict safeguards.
References & Source Links
European Commission – European Health Data Space (EHDS): Official legal framework, entry into force details (March 2025), rules on primary/secondary data use, and cross-border healthcare infrastructure (MyHealth@EU). Link
MyHealth@EU – Cross-border Digital Health Services: Detailed explanation of the European network enabling the secure exchange of Patient Summaries and e-Prescriptions across member states. Link
Portal Zdravlja (e-Građani): Official Croatian government portal for citizens to securely access their medical records, laboratory results, and CEZIH data. Link
HZZO (Croatian Health Insurance Fund) – European Health Data Space: Implementation guidelines in Croatia, confirming the utilization of large datasets for digital development and personalized medicine. Link
AI4Health.Cro Innovation Challenge: Official confirmation of the March-May 2026 challenge focusing on Type 2 diabetes management, showcasing secondary data use in the Croatian startup ecosystem. Link
