Challenge

Cross-border eHealth services depend on national systems being able to exchange and interpret health information securely. By 2014, European pilot projects such as epSOS had demonstrated services including patient summaries and electronic prescriptions, but these remained largely project-based. Without continued maintenance, governance and technical coordination, the assets developed through these pilots risked becoming unavailable before permanent European infrastructure was ready.

Member States also differed in their technical capacity, standards and national eHealth plans. Moving from individual pilots to routine cross-border care therefore required a shared process for maintaining interoperability resources and preparing their adoption at national and European levels.

Solutions

EXPAND connected national and regional health authorities with interoperability centres, standards organisations and European initiatives. The network maintained and assessed legal, organisational, semantic and technical assets from epSOS and other projects, while aligning them with decisions of the European eHealth Network. Its five work packages covered governance, stakeholder communication, dissemination, the selection and quality control of interoperability assets, and their handover to the Connecting Europe Facility.

EXPAND also provided a cooperation platform for Member States and held and EXPANDATHON in Lisbon, where cross-border systems and interoperability tools could be tested in practice.

Results

EXPAND preserved knowledge and technical resources developed through epSOS during the transition from temporary pilots to operational European services. It helped ensure that useful specifications, standards and interoperability components remained available for the infrastructure that later supported EU cross-border health data exchange.

The project also strengthened cooperation between Member States, standards bodies and specialist organisations. By consolidating interoperability assets and preparing their transfer to the Connecting Europe Facility, EXPAND helped establish a more sustainable basis for services such as cross-border patient summaries, ePrescriptions and eDispensation.