ICUdata4EU addresses the challenges that Intensive Care Units (ICUs) are facing, such as aging society, combined with a shortage of specialized staff, with the possibility to also address crisis situations, such as future pandemics or wars. With a strong consortium and building on established networks, societies and federated infrastructures, ICUdata4EU is deploying an ICU dataspace infrastructure to link and enable access and exploration of ICU databases on acute care, intensive care and telemedicine in the EU. The project objectives and outcomes in technology, medical and societal innovation will be the basis for development of new data intensive tools for decision support and risk prevention. ICUdata4EU will confirm and demonstrate the effectiveness of the dataspace infrastructure in terms of its security, interoperability with datasets and modelling tools, and potential for improvement in care provision, efficiency, and effectiveness.
The project is building on the pan-European initiative “Telehealth Europe”- a telemedical, intersectoral network of the Digital Europe Industry (DEI) Health Cluster and supported by EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). It is cooperating with Telehealth Hubs in more than 12 countries in Europe, closely interlinked with the European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIH) and European Reference Networks (ERN), in particular the ERN on Acute Care and Telemedicine (ERN-ACT), alongside a digital skills telehealth and telecare education centre DS4Health. Combined with governance mechanisms allowing secure cross-border access and use of ICU datasets, related tools and resources, the ICU Data Space will be fully interoperable with the European Health Data Space (EHDS), federated European infrastructures for genomics data (GDI) and cancer imaging data (EUCAIM), the EDITH Coordination and Support on the European Virtual Human Twin. ICUdata4EU is a critical component of Europe's ambition to lead in the provision of acute and intensive care.