EPHA is a leading NGO advocating for better health for everyone living in Europe. Our mission is to bring together the public health community to provide thought leadership and facilitate change; to build public health capacity to deliver equitable solutions to European public health challenges, to improve health and reduce health inequalities. Our key role is to promote health in the European Union at the highest levels of policy making across the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council.

80 million people still live in poverty in the EU, and poor living conditions, low income, poor employment conditions and unhealthy diets due to being unable to afford to buy healthy food are all key determinants of health. In addition, many of the key determinants of health lie outside of the control of individual citizens, such as how healthcare systems are managed, how food production in the EU is organized and how trade regulations enable or discourage healthy food choices and how pharmaceutical policies and the cost of medicines are regulated, for example.

EPHA's proposal for an operating grant under a Framework Partnership Agreement covers core operating costs for actions that contribute to the four objectives of the Third Health Programme. EPHA's workplan covers 4 strategic aims: improve overall population health and healthy life years, strengthen European health systems for better patient outcomes and reduced inequalities, and support institutional and policy frameworks that promote health and to strengthen and increase effective public health.

Health in all Policies, prevention-promotion-protection, reducing health inequalities and solidarity are central tenets of EPHA's workplan and are reflected in our approaches to working inter alia on food systems, trade and EU governance. Decreasing health inequalities is a core value that we endeavor to mainstream in all activities. Actions in the 2015 workplan reflect the final year of EPHA’s current strategic plan, and this year will be crucial for setting the 2016 to 2020 strategy.
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The Joint Action Towards the European Health Data Space (TEHDAS) is a consortium of 26 EU MS and other countries that work to improve cross-border use of health data for the benefit of citizens’ health, for public health, research and innovation.TEHDAS builds on earlier EU actions fostering the digital transformation of European health systems. It contributes to responding to the Member States’ call at the October 2020 European Council to set up a European Health Data Space and proposed by the von der Leyen Commission.The Joint Action helps Members States and the Commission in developing and promoting concepts for sharing of data so that in the future Europe, citizens, communities and companies benefit from a protected and seamless access to health data regardless where it is stored.TEHDAS will suggest options for an operational framework and governance in order to overcome legal and technical differences between countries. TEHDAS is grounded on the principles of transparency, trust and citizen empowerment. It will work on technical and semantic challenges, propose services, architectural and infrastructural elements required in the European Health Data Space.Citizens increasingly manage their data which requires a better understanding and a European perspective. To maintain trust in fair and secure data sharing, TEHDAS will suggest strengthened governance mechanisms for cross-sector use of health data in common data spaces at the EU and Member State levels.TEHDAS will reach out and engage with many types of stakeholders to reflect their needs and expectations, explore views on economic issues, and suggest concrete ways to integrate results into the future the European Health Data Space.
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This proposal lays out the Work Programme for 2017 within the contents of the Multiannual Work Plan for the European Reference Network for Craniofacial Anomalies and ENT disorders (ERN CRANIO). ERN CRANIO involves teams from 29 European hospitals (10 Member States) that provide care, education, teaching, research and management of rare craniofacial anomalies, cleft lip/palate and ENT disorders. Our vision is that the best multidisciplinary initial care for all those with craniofacial anomalies and ENT disorders is not a privilege to be purchased but a moral right secured for all European patients.
Our MISSION is to consistently and persistently strive towards achieving our vision through:
1. Establishment and management of a steady referral network for patients with craniofacial anomalies and ENT disorders throughout Europe; 2. Improvement of the quality of care, by enhancing diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of the patients with rare craniofacial anomalies and ENT disorders; 3. Minimization of the deviation from our operational standards and sharing best practices through suitable quality improvement initiatives, while monitoring their effectiveness using measures and indicators; 4. Stimulating innovation through multicentre research projects on (genetic) causes, pathophysiology, and associated problems, and introduction of eHealth; 5. Supporting the continuous learning and development of all our members by providing high quality educational and training opportunities to medical, nursing and other healthcare professionals; 6. Disseminating gained knowledge, making it available to all stakeholders.

In Year 1, ERN CRANIO will focus on collecting and analysing the available data on diagnoses, treatment, follow-up programmes, education and eHealth. In addition, the aim is to further expand the network in the first year by including relevant partners and experts. The results of the first year will set the agenda for subsequent years.
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ERN-RND is a network of 32 Healthcare Providers from 13 EU member states. ERN-RDN builds on existing expert centres and mature networks dedicated to rare neurological diseases (RND) as well as established rare disease infrastructures such as Orphanet, EURORDIS and RD-Connect. Through coordination and knowledge transfer, ERN-RND shall establish a patient-centred network to address the needs of patients with RND of all age groups, with or without a definite diagnosis, by implementing an infrastructure for diagnosis, evidence-based management, treatment and collection of patient data. The network will develop, disseminate, implement and supervise best practice guidelines and care pathways to optimize patient care and facilitate training and capacity building in the field. A special effort will be aimed to member states with less developed infrastructure for caring for RND patients, where no current partners are located, or with only affiliated or collaborative partners. ERN-RND will inform planning of European and national health care in RND, facilitating translation of research activities into clinical practice and the development of future therapies. Keeping in line with ERN-RND’s strategic objectives the seven most important operational targets for year 3-5 are:
• Role-out of CPMS in ERN-RND for disease group specific use cases
• Define responding strategies for disease groups specific most important care needs for RND in the EU
• Implement EQA scheme for genetic diagnosis of RND
• Together with the European Academy of Neurology put in place process for development of RND clinical practise guidelines
• Implement ERN-RND training program consisting of training workshops, fellowships and e-learning
• Demonstrate value of RND registries for trial-readiness
• Establish ERN-RND web-site as THE European RND disease knowledge hub

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The overall ambition from EU Member States (MS) is to better include eHealth into health policy and better align eHealth investments to health needs. A central aspect is the transferability of health data across borders of MS and therefore the organizational, technical, semantic and legal interoperability. In order to ensure progress and to bridge the gaps between the governance, strategy and operational levels, a dedicated mechanism for eHealth at EU level has been established: The eHealth Network was formally established in 2011 through the Commission’s Implementing Decision 2011/890/EU based on Art. 14.3 Directive 2011/24/EU and represents the highest decision-making body at EU political level. At a European level there is a strong need to maintain this mechanism and to ensure further common political leadership and ongoing integration of eHealth into health policy in order to continue developing eHealth services responding to health systems‘ needs and health objectives. This is the framework for the Joint Action to support the eHealth Network which is led by the MS and co-financed by the European Commission through a Joint Action.

Hence, the main objective of the Joint Action is to act as the main preparatory body for the eHealth Network. By doing so, the Joint Action aims to develop political recommendations and instruments for cooperation in the four specific priority areas that are specified in the eHealth Network's multi-annual work plan 2015-2018 and that were adopted by the eHealth Network in May 2014:
(1) Interoperability and standardisation,
(2) monitoring and assessment of implementation,
(3) exchange of knowledge and
(4) global cooperation and positioning.

Thereby, the Joint Action functions also as a platform for operational and strategic cooperation between MS on eHealth including their relationship with eHealth Stakeholder Groups and Standardization Organizations.
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