Powered by the Department of Care of Flanders, Belgium

The Department of Care of Flanders looks at the vision, challenges, and road ahead towards implementing an integrated approach for digital transformation in health and care. It reflects on what it takes to build and implement a common vision, and examines the role of the EHTEL community and next steps on the European Health Data Space (EHDS).

Digital transformation is reshaping health and care across Europe. In Flanders, efforts to create a unified digital health and care policy highlight both significant opportunities and real challenges. The region's new vision for ‘digital health & care’ aims to coordinate government stakeholders, define concepts, and guide future progress.

What is digital health and care?

Digital health and care refers to the use of digital technologies and data-driven solutions to enable quality health and support services for all citizens. The term deliberately spans both traditional healthcare (treatment, diagnostics, and prevention) and broader care and support – such as tools for independent living, social participation, and self-management. It includes a wide spectrum of technologies: web platforms, mobile apps, telemonitoring, artificial intelligence, robotics, and extended reality. These tools serve as enablers of better care, not as goals in themselves. Importantly, digital health and care involves everyone: citizens, patients, care professionals, informal caregivers, organisations, government, innovators, and technology suppliers. The concept is grounded in guiding principles like digital inclusion, data privacy, interoperability, and an unwavering focus on quality of life.

Flanders Department of Care

Creating a common vision

To address the growth of digital initiatives, the Department of Care in Flanders launched a collaborative vision development process. Between November 2024 and February 2025, this exercise was conducted exclusively internally in our own policy domain. Stakeholders from care, wellbeing, IT, and policy in our administration took part in workshops to define digital health and care, identify target groups, and explore connections between initiatives. This inclusive approach fostered trust and helped surface a shared interpretation of digital health and care. The resulting vision frames digital health and care as a collective responsibility, requiring seamless collaboration across sectors and government levels.

Moving towards shared understanding and implementation

While the vision is clear, translating it into effective policy is complex. One enduring challenge is the tension between business priorities – of care providers, end-users, and policymakers – and the realities of IT implementation. Too often, technology pushes ahead without fully considering people’s needs on the ground, resulting in fragmented or duplicated solutions. Hence, the region’s vision urges a needs-driven, integrated approach. Effective governance – clear roles, decision frameworks, and investment strategies – must steer digital health and care across all the relevant domains. Embedding digital health and care principles across public health, social care, and related policies is essential for cohesion and sustainability. This is why we refer to “digital health in all policies”.

Regaining Strategic Control

A key lesson for Flanders is the importance of maintaining strategic control over digital health and care. Without strong leadership, there is the risk of a patchwork landscape shaped by vendor agendas rather than public interest. The Department of Care is addressing this challenge by setting standards for interoperability and data quality, clarifying responsibilities, and deciding which systems should be public or private. This approach aims to strengthen public trust, support data-driven improvements, and ensure all stakeholders – especially the most vulnerable – can benefit from digital progress.

Looking Forward

Flanders’ experience demonstrates that successful digital health and care policy depends on co-creation, a shared vision, and continuous dialogue. Central to this approach is a clear understanding of what digital health and care is – and why it matters. While challenges remain, especially in aligning business priorities with technological realities, the region is committed to advancing digital health and care for the benefit of all. European collaboration and knowledge exchange will accelerate further progress. The EHTEL community plays a vital role in sharing best practices and supporting the next steps in digital health and care – building a future that is inclusive, effective, and truly digital.

Data sharing and data exchange: EHDS

One of the key building blocks of digital health and care is facilitating data sharing and data exchange for two uses: primary use (for the delivery of healthcare), and secondary use (e.g. for research). Today, Flanders’ is working on an implementation roadmap for the EHDS Regulation in cooperation with other government bodies and relevant stakeholders in order to realise fully the EHDS’s potential.

The Flanders Department of Care hopes to be able to share more of its own knowledge with the EHTEL community in the future: both on its next steps in the digital transformation of health and care, and on the route to be taken towards implementation of the EHDS.