HELT TALKS _2025-26-s04

2025/26 | Session 04

What are the 'HELT Talks' ?

HELT stands for Health, Ethics, Law, and Technology – four broad subject areas that intersect each other in discourses around improving quality and access to health care, or advancing medical research beyond the state-of-the-art. Following on the success of the HELT Symposium, our annual flagship event which brings together representatives from the academia, industry, research organisations, healthcare professionals and policymakers, the HELT Talks was conceived as a year-round (monthly) event, providing a dynamic platform for thought-provoking discussions and stimulating debates on the future of digital health and care, through the prism of regulatory responses and relevant policy initiatives.

What is the typical format of a session at HELT Talks?

HELT Talks sessions are typically divided into two parts. In the first part, each speaker gives a presentation on a specific topic, touching upon particular challenges and open issues around the integration of technology in the realm of health care that require delving into legal and regulatory frameworks. The second part of the session aims at encouraging a deeper level of reflection on the topic under discussion, through organic conversations between the speakers and the audience.

What kind of topics are covered at HELT Talks?

HELT Talks cover a breadth of topics on law, ethics, health and technology, ranging from legal challenges for the use of health data and regulatory issues concerning advanced medical technology, to the use of artificial intelligence in clinical settings and the application of ethical principles in health care.

TALK of the Month

26 February 2026 | 13:00-15:00

From Data to Decisions: AI, Health Data Governance and Patient-Centred Innovation in European Healthcare

The reuse of health data and the application of artificial intelligence (AI) hold significant promise for advancing personalised and precision medicine, yet their implementation in clinical practice and research remains constrained by technical, legal, ethical, and organisational barriers. This talk examines these challenges through two complementary case studies: AI-driven decision support for multiple sclerosis using multimodal real-world data, and the secondary use of complex clinical and biomedical data in neuro-oncological research.

Bringing together perspectives from data science and data protection law, the speakers explore the persistent gap between technological innovation and practical deployment. Key obstacles include fragmented data infrastructures, limited interoperability, strict interpretations of data protection and medical secrecy, governance complexity, and the evolving European regulatory landscape, notably the GDPR and the European Health Data Space (EHDS).

The talk will examine emerging technical and governance solutions, including federated learning, FHIR-based interoperability, secure data environments, and European initiatives aimed at enabling responsible health data reuse. By bringing together empirical experience from hospital practice and interdisciplinary research with legal-ethical analysis, this session aims to provide participants with a nuanced understanding of how AI and health data governance can be aligned to deliver clinically meaningful, ethically grounded, and legally compliant innovation for patient benefit in Europe.

Speakers

Dr. Hamza Khan

Data Scientist, Ziekenhuis Oost-Limburg

Hamza obtained a double doctorate from Hasselt University (Belgium) and Maastricht University (Netherlands), where he worked at the intersection of artificial intelligence, medical imaging, and data governance in healthcare. He currently works as a Data Scientist at Ziekenhuis Oost-Limburg, where he develops GDPR-compliant data pipelines and FHIR-based interoperability frameworks to enable secure data exchange between hospitals. His work bridges research and practice in digital health, with a particular focus on precision medicine, data driven support systems and responsible data infrastructures.

Karen Cruyt

PhD Researcher, VUB - Research Centre for Digital Medicine

Karen is a PhD researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). She specialises in data protection law, with a particular focus on the governance and secondary use of health data. She also has practical experience, having previously worked as a data protection consultant on projects primarily in the life sciences sector. In addition, she is a member of the Medical Research Ethics Committee of the University Hospital Brussels. Her research focuses on the legal and ethical obstacles to using health data and human tissues in neuro-oncological research. It takes a distinctly patient-centred approach, emphasising patients’ rights and ensuring that their voices are heard throughout the research process. Through legal-empirical research, it analyses challenges in regulations such as the GDPR and the EHDS, complemented by insights from relevant stakeholders.