Digital Healthcare 2025

BELGIUM Trends and Developments Contributed by: Thibaut D’hulst, Ilham Irgiou and Ossama M’Rini, Van Bael & Bellis

sive, national electronic health record accessible to authorised healthcare professionals across the country. Its primary goal, supported by the Coalition Agreement, is to ensure continuity of care for every patient by providing a unified and secure platform for health data. The aim is for the BIHR to achieve full national interoperability by 2026–2027. Existing Belgian initiatives illustrate this push for better data integration. For example, the Brus- sels Health Network (BHN) connects all public and private hospitals in the Brussels region, as well as the French and Dutch-speaking associa- tions of general practitioners (GPs) in Brussels. These platforms allow healthcare providers to access and share relevant patient information, eg, medical history, test results, and medication lists, helping avoid unnecessary repeat tests. The federal eHealth platform, with its MaSanté patient portal and the eHealthBox secure mes- saging system, remains a cornerstone. A recent concrete development is the Mult-eMe- diatt application. Developed by NIHDI in collabo- ration with the eHealth Platform, Medex (a fed- eral agency responsible for conducting medical assessments for sick leave or workplace acci- dents), and the National Intermutualistic College (CIN/NIC), it allows GPs to electronically trans- mit medical certificates directly to health insur- ance funds or Medex, streamlining an important administrative process. Alignment with European Health Data Space (EHDS) Belgium’s national data sharing initiatives are closely aligned with the broader European agenda, particularly the EHDS. The EHDS Reg- ulation (2025/327), which entered into force on 26 March 2025, aims to give individuals great- er control over their health data and facilitate

secure cross-border data exchange for primary care purposes, as well as for secondary uses such as research, innovation, and health poli- cymaking. The eHealth Plan includes the planned intercon- nection of the BIHR with the EHDS, commenc- ing in 2025. Belgium’s proactive engagement is further demonstrated by Sciensano’s involve- ment in preparatory projects such as the TEH- DAS2 Joint Action (aimed at developing con- crete guidelines for EHDS implementation) and the EHDS2 PILOT project (which concluded in October 2024 and focused on establishing infra- structure for secondary data use). The Belgian Health Data Agency (HDA) and data governance A key institutional development mandated by the Coalition Agreement is the formalisation of the HDA as a federal agency. HeDERA, a project co-ordinated by the Belgian Federal Public Ser- vice Health, Food chain safety and Environment ( Service public fédéral Santé publique, Sécurité de la chaîne alimentaire et Environnement/Fed- erale Overheidsdienst Volksgezondheid, Veilig- heid van de Voedselketen en Leefmilieu – FPS Health) in partnership with Sciensano, supports the HDA’s mission to facilitate secondary use of health, healthcare and well-being data in a safe, uniform, and transparent environment, compli- ant with privacy regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679) (GDPR) and the principles of the EHDS. Furthermore, health data managed by the Intermutualistic Agency (IMA/AIM) will be made accessible to authorised public and research institutions upon request, to support scientific research and inform health policy decisions.

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