Artificial intelligence is now truly on everyone’s agenda. From visions of the Fourth – and even Fifth  – Industrial Revolutions to pleas for the safeguarding of human beings in papal encyclicals, a shift is occurring from the simple notion of digital transformation to the more radical AI transformation of health and care systems. EHTEL has made substantial commitments to AI for health and care over the years, exploring its importance not only contemporarily, but increasingly in the future.

Now, EHTEL is expanding the three pillars of its work programme to encompass AI.

The three pillars are moving towards:

• AI to support interoperability and to benefit from it
• AI as a care delivery transformative agent.
• AI, and the need for capacity-building to use it.

Collaborations between the European Commission, WHO Europe and the OECD

EHTEL was, hence, pleased to see the synergy with pronouncements made in recent times by the European Commission. At a late April 2026 meeting held with experts and members of the European Commission, WHO Europe, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Fulvia Raffaelli of the European Commission’s DG SANTE offered insights into AI. Ms Raffaelli spoke of both low-hanging and “high-hanging” fruit, and where the gaps lie with deployment.

♦ “Low-Hanging Fruit”: AI is already improving efficiency (e.g., administrative automation and diagnostic imaging). But deployment lags behind. Only 43% of healthcare professionals and 46% of EU AI developers report real-world use.

♦ “High-Hanging Fruit”: In 5 years’ time, AI could revolutionise clinical decision support, leverage health data, and positively influence equity in underserved regions.

♦ The Deployment Gap: Data silos and interoperability issues are some major barriers related to AI. Progress on AI will stall, without there being common standards (e.g., on EHDS alignment) and collaborative ecosystems.

The meeting included the promotion of the launch of a report which lists statistics on Europe’s state of readiness regarding AI. Based on responses to a 2024-2025 survey from most of the WHO Europe countries (and including all the European Union Member States), it highlights a set of AI-related trends. The trends outline directions in: national AI strategies; stakeholder engagement and health workforce development; the legal and regulatory landscape; health data governance; AI opportunities and applications; and various barriers contrasted with policy enablers.

EHTEL has started to develop a core set of messages 

EHTEL starts from the fact that between 70-85% of electronic health record data is unstructured – these are insights gained from the Electronic Patient Record for the Institute of Analytics of Health (DPI for INAH) project/platform in Wallonia, Belgium.

Source: Thierry Klein, DIP for INAH project, IHE Connectathon, 24 March 2026

EHTEL’s key reflections around AI-related high-hanging fruit, in particular, are that:

There is a gap!

While AI can be used to work with unstructured data for selected process depending on the intended use, contextual data is often not captured in an appropriate way. (It often doesn’t follow Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR) or “only once” principles; hence e.g., it doesn’t use suitable metadata). Therefore:

• Improving the structured data ratio and capturing contextualisation will have positive effects on primary and secondary use of health data.

What is needed to reduce the gap and make progress on semantic interoperability of EHR systems?

For progress to be made, at least three important moves need to be made on:

• Technology scaling up.
• Semantic interoperability infrastructure (including having a terminology server).
• Data governance.

What else is needed?

Any policy conversation needs to include, as a topic, “the energy bomb” (i.e., short-term and long-term effects that AI may have on global warming through the use of e.g., data centres or nuclear energy):

• Using computing resources when AI adds value is, however, an economic and societal priority.

EHTEL continues in four ways …

EHTEL is holding associated discussions on these AI “high-hanging fruit” challenges and the ways in which the EHDS could be scaled up with groups like the National Initiatives Network and the EU Health Coalition.

EHTEL continues working on all of these developments with its members.

We encourage as many people as possible to contribute to the complete the European Commission’s quick stakeholder survey on AI use  in organisations, especially in healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Fill it in until 26 June 2026.

Do consider joining EHTEL’s Thought Leader Forum to consolidate and progress these ideas with us!

EHTEL background documentation

For further insights into these ideas:

• Take a look at EHTEL working papers 2 and 3
• Visit once more the outcomes of Sessions 2 and 3 at the Radical Heath Festival Helsinki.
  • Session 2 – Structured high-quality data with AI 
  • Session 3 – Electronic health record (EHR) algorithm communication 
• Coming up soon, EHTEL will be publishing a research paper on FAIR data structures and communication between EHDS-compliant EHR systems and algorithm-based tools
• Look back at this work on semantic interoperability 
• Overall, see Artificial intelligence under the EHTEL spotlight 

And in addition

• Read all about the European Commission’s Apply AI Strategy, one of which’s industrial sectors is healthcare and pharmaceuticals 
• Answer the European Commission’s brief survey on AI, open until 26 June 2026
• Visit the European Commission's page on  Artificial Intelligence in Health
• Glance at questions 22, 39, and 65 of the European Commission’s Frequently Asked Questions on the European Health Data Space  (FAQ version of 26 March 2026)