Adapting National eHealth Strategies to Evolving Regulatory Frameworks for Health Data Exchange

Health data and IT systems worldwide are being reshaped by a new generation of regulations and frameworks governing how electronic health data is stored, shared and reused. Countries across different regions of the world are advancing their own frameworks for national and cross-border data exchange, secondary use of data, and institutional data stewardship. For many countries, meeting these requirements may mean rethinking national eHealth strategies that were not designed for this pace of regulatory change.The central challenge is adaptation. National strategies must align with fast-moving legal and policy requirements while remaining technically workable on the ground — an especially demanding task where infrastructure, funding and regulatory maturity vary widely. This depends on solving a persistent standardization problem: making health data genuinely interoperable and exchangeable across systems, institutions and borders. Achieving this requires coordinated progress on technical specifications and standards (such as HL7 FHIR, SNOMED CT, ICD, LOINC and openEHR), governance and data protection, and equitable implementation that does not widen the digital divide between well-resourced and lower-resourced health systems.This Research Topic invites contributions that examine how national and regional eHealth strategies — in any country or region — can be designed, reformed or future-proofed to keep pace with changing health data regulation. We are especially keen to hear from low- and middle-income countries and emerging digital health systems, whose experiences of leapfrogging legacy infrastructure, adapting global standards to local constraints, or building interoperability from the ground up are often under-represented in literature. Examples already emerging worldwide include Colombia’s national FHIR-based Resumen Digital de Atención en Salud (RDA) , mHealth4Afrika’s FHIR-based interoperability work across Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa, the African Union’s Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa (2020–2030) , the Philippines’ National Health Data Repository, the UAE’s Malaffi , Uruguay’s Salud Digital , Indonesia’s SATUSEHA, EU’s EHDS, US’ TEFCA and national initiatives in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Australia and New Zealand. Beyond documenting current practice, a key goal of this collection is to generate evidence and actionable recommendations that can inform and shape regulatory frameworks themselves, feeding back into the policy and standard-setting processes now underway globally. We welcome submissions from all regions of the world, including comparative analyses across different regulatory environments, income levels and health system structures. We particularly encourage practical use cases and case studies that show what works, what fails, and why, alongside conceptual, policy and methodological contributions.Themes of interest include, but are not limited to:· Use cases and case studies of health data interoperability and exchange, at national, regional or cross-border level, from any region of the world· National and regional eHealth strategies and their alignment with evolving data regulations· Technical specifications and standards for health data transfer (e.g. HL7 FHIR, SNOMED CT, LOINC, openEHR) and approaches to the standardization problem· Global comparative analyses of macro eHealth policy/regulatory frameworks across diverse health systems, including across income levels· Institutional governance, data protection and organizational trust frameworks for health data· Secondary use of health data for research, policy and public health· Equity, inclusion and prevention of the digital divide in health data systems· Evidence and recommendations to inform and improve regulatory frameworks and standard-setting· Lessons learned, implementation barriers and enablers, and policy recommendations to guide future regulationWe acknowledge the initiation and support of this Research Topic by University College London’s RDR Centre of Digital Public Health in Emergencies (dPHE). We hereby state publicly that UCL’s RDR Centre of dPHE has had no editorial input in articles included in this Research Topic, thus ensuring that all aspects of this Research Topic are evaluated objectively, and unbiased by any specific policy or opinion of UCL’s RDR Centre of dPHE. Topic editors: Syed Abrar Ahmed, Jordi Piera-Jiménez Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85234/adapting-national-ehealth-strategies-to-evolving-regulatory-frameworks-for-health-data-exchange