European Health Systems: Conclusions from the Copenhagen Dialogue

More than 60 senior health system leaders gathered at Rigshospitalet and the German Embassy in Copenhagen on 18 May 2026 for a day of closed-door, peer-to-peer exchange on the future of European healthcare. The Outcomes Report, “The Future of Health Systems in a Changing Europe,” captures the strategic conclusions from that dialogue.

The dialogue brought together senior executives from the Danish health system alongside the German and Spanish Data2Value communities, with international participants joining from across Europe. Discussions addressed how cross-national collaboration can help health systems turn digital transformation, health data, regulation, innovation, resilience, and care delivery into practical value for hospitals and regions across Europe.

European Healthcare Systems Can Advance Faster Through Collaboration

European health systems share many of the same challenges: responsible data use, interoperability, resilient infrastructure, workforce readiness, and the ability to scale innovation, even where governance structures differ considerably. A central finding was that the European Health Data Space is widely perceived as focused on secondary data use and therefore not directly relevant to most organisations. Closing that gap requires broader ownership of the EHDS vision and early communication of its benefits beyond specialists and civil servants.

Resilience Must Be Built Before Crises Occur

Resilience was examined as a structural requirement for health systems, not only as an emergency response function. Prof. Robert Schwab, Commander and Medical Director of Central Hospital Koblenz, contributed to the fireside chat on the topic, which focused on continuity of care under pressure – covering cyber incidents, workforce shortages, digital dependency, and broader system disruptions. Participants identified two structural gaps: the absence of a shared European vocabulary for categories of threat and consequence, and insufficient governance and funding frameworks to support comparable safeguards across member states. Current reform efforts were seen as directionally correct but insufficient. The dual-use potential of health system investment was also raised – the infrastructure, data capabilities, and organisational resilience built for healthcare carry strategic value beyond the sector itself.

Scaling Innovation Remains a Central Barrier

Europe does not lack ideas, pilots, or innovation projects. The challenge is moving successful approaches into routine practice. Participants identified procurement as a concrete lever, with the active involvement of health professionals in procurement, design, and implementation seen as a critical enabler of early adoption. Initiating machine learning and large language model deployment within individual organisations was identified as a first essential step – and one many health systems have yet to take.

Digital Maturity Requires More Than Technical Infrastructure

Digital maturity depends on leadership, culture, workforce involvement, and the ability to embed new ways of working into everyday practice. Boards and senior management were identified as needing genuine fluency in generative and agentic AI. Healthcare professionals were consistently underlined as a critical variable: where they are actively involved from the beginning, the prospects for sustainable transformation increase measurably.

The Role of the Data2Value Initiative

The Data2Value Initiative acts as a leadership network connecting stakeholders across care delivery, policy, science, and industry. Its mission is to accelerate digital maturity, build systematic data competence, and foster a cultural shift toward responsible and democratised health data use.

The conversation continues at the Data2Value European Summit | AI That Works. On Europe’s Terms. in Barcelona on 4–5 February 2027.