In our last episode of season 2, we are delighted to invite back Prof Peter Rijnbeek, Chair of Medical Informatics at Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, Coordinator of EHDEN, Director of the DARWIN EU Coordination Centre, and Lead for OHDSI Europe, who ended season one of this podcast discussing predictive analytics, and ends now season 2. 

For this episode Peter reflects on the success of the OHDSI Europe symposium (24-26th June), held aboard the SS Rotterdam in the harbour and at Erasmus MC, with 350 registrants, 24 plenaries, 80 posters, a workshop and multiple OHDSI working group meetings, all for the back in person after the COVID-19 lockdowns. A number of highlights, in the science, in networking and collaboration and with regards to future developments are discussed, in particular the session on 10 countries in a 'cruise around Europe' and the growth of national networks or nodes, and evidence generation at scale. Peter goes on to explain OHDSI Europe, its work as a regional chapter of OHDSI, support of symposia, but also development of national nodes across multiple European countries, and reflecting on methodological and technical developments required for Europe itself in the CDM and standardised analytical pipeline.

In the middle of the episode, Peter explores the many proud achievements made by EHDEN, from the network development of Data Partners, training and certification of SMEs, implementation of the CDM at an industrial scale, and the move now to large-scale, rapid network analysis. The launch of the EHDEN Portal at the OHDSI Europe meeting is also a recent highlight. Ultimately, the remaining time of the IMI phase of EHDEN will be focused on illustrating evidence generation to improve patient outcomes, but also sustainability via an EHDEN not-for-profit that will parallel and then take over in 2024.

Lastly, we discuss the difference from the launch of EHDEN in 2018, to now and to 2024/2025 at the end of the IMI phase and beyond and what that may look like in a new Europe with mass adoption of the CDM, also exemplified with the recent initiation of the European Medicines Agency's DARWIN EU initiative, also based on the OMOP CDM and a federated model. Perhaps content for a future episode.

The views expressed by the participants are personal and not necessarily reflective of their organisations.

The Voice of EHDEN will return in September.