As President of Latvia and President of Microsoft concluded, COVID-19 pandemic has clearly shown the importance of international cooperation in health-related matters and the need to eliminate bottlenecks thwarting data-driven medical solutions, which would greatly benefit patients. President Levits indicated that European Health Data Space would be a major force behind medical research and practices of the future. Egils Levits also expressed his support for Microsoft’s digital skills initiatives in various fields, including biomedicine. These projects will greatly enhance national and cross-border level digital cooperation.
On the digital cooperation, the President of Latvia presented Brad Smith the Children’s Clinical University Hospital digital transformation action plan. This flagship pilot project is critical for development of paediatrics in Latvia. Egils Levits offered Microsoft to become a partner in this project and help Children’s Hospital to develop as a centre of excellence in paediatrics and integrate North European hospital data networks. The President of Microsoft, Brad Smith, confirmed Microsoft’s interest in becoming a partner in Children’s Hospital as centre of excellence project in Latvia.
Better research opportunities would enhance the quality of paediatric treatment. As President Levits emphasised, the project should become a blueprint for European Health Data Space architecture that other European countries can apply. Such a project contains many technological and also legal challenges like patient data protection, privacy and data security, to name a few.
President of Latvia and President of Microsoft confirmed continued commitment to deeper EU–US technology cooperation in given geopolitical conditions.