Diseases have no borders, so why should EU patients?

The worldwide Covid-19 pandemic highlighted many aspects of world health, but perhaps the most obvious and most important is that diseases have no borders.

The mobility of people within the European Union has increased massively in recent years. so it’s become increasingly  important that information on the medical background of a patient should be available to all citizens and healthcare professionals, wherever they live in Europe. Consequently this been a trigger in the adoption of digital health tools.

Currently, two cross-border e-health services are already operational in several European countries. The e-prescription and dispensation allows European citizens to get their medicines from a pharmacy in another Member State.

The patient summary provides medical information to ensure healthcare for patients coming from another EU country. Both services are part of the MyHealth@EU, which is the infrastructure that enables the exchange of health data across the European Union.

Laurent Vandenhove is a Doctor at the Capellen Medical Centre in Luxembourg.

"It may be possible that there will be problems of understanding and communication, particularly in terms of language. This is why it is important for patient and doctor to be able to safely have data translated into the language of the country in which the doctor practices."

Luxembourg has been running the Patient Summary service for two years now. Once the patient agrees to share health data, doctors can access useful medical information.

Doctor Laurent Vandenhove again.

"The data accessible at the level of this cross-border exchange are: patient's doctor, diseases and surgical interventions that the patient has had in the past, medical devices, allergies, in particular drug