The escalating mass influx of people to Europe in the 21st century due to geopolitical and economic reasons as well as food crises ignites significant challenges for national health care services. The lack or disruption of cross-border, e-transferred, health-related data negatively affects the health outcome and continuous care, particularly in medically compromised individuals with an unsettled status. Proposal: The urgent need of a structured database, in the form of a health-related data register funded by the European Union that allows a swift exchange of crucial medical data, was discussed to flag ever-increasing migrants' health problems, with a primary aim to support an adequate health care provision for underserved people who are at risk of deteriorating health. The data security information technology aspects, with a proposed and drafted structure of an e-health register, were succinctly highlighted. Conclusions: Focusing on long-term benefits and considering future waves of mass relocation, an investment in a health-related data register in Europe could vastly reduce health care disparities between minority groups and improve epidemiological situations with regard to major illnesses, including common, communicable diseases as well as oncological and infectious conditions. Commissioners, policymakers, and stakeholders are urged to continue a collective action to ensure vulnerable people can access health services by responding to the ongoing global migration crisis.

Department of Conservative Dentistry with Endodontics Medical University of Silesia 40 055 Katowice Poland

Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Justus Liebig University 35390 Giessen Germany

Department of Public Health Faculty of Medicine Masaryk University 601 77 Brno Czech Republic

See more in PubMed

Kamenshchikova A., Margineau I., Munir S., Knights F., Carter J., Requena-Mendez A., Ciftci Y., James R.A., Orcutt M., Blanchet K., et al. Health-care provision for displaced populations arriving from Ukraine. Lancet Infect. Dis. 2022;22:757–759. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00225-0. PubMed DOI PMC

Murphy A., Fuhr D., Roberts B., Jarvis C.I., Tarasenko A., McKee M. The health needs of refugees from Ukraine. BMJ. 2022;377:o864. doi: 10.1136/bmj.o864. PubMed DOI

Lewtak K., Kanecki K., Tyszko P., Goryński P., Bogdan M., Nitsch-Osuch A. Ukraine war refugees—Threats and new challenges for healthcare in Poland. J. Hosp. Infect. 2022;125:37–43. doi: 10.1016/j.jhin.2022.04.006. PubMed DOI

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Operational Data Portal. Ukraine Refugees Situation. [(accessed on 30 July 2022)]. Available online: https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/Ukraine.

European Migration Network Annual Report on Migration and Asylum in 2021. June 2022. [(accessed on 27 September 2022)]. Available online: https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/networks/european-migration-network-emn/emn-publications/emn-annual-reports_en.

Chiesa V., Chiarenza A., Mosca D., Rechel B. Health records for migrants and refugees: A systematic review. Health Policy. 2019;123:888–900. doi: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2019.07.018. PubMed DOI

Jankowski M., Gujski M. Editorial: The Public Health Implications for the Refugee Population, Particularly in Poland, Due to the War in Ukraine. Med. Sci. Monit. 2022;28:e936808. doi: 10.12659/MSM.936808. PubMed DOI

Su Z., McDonnell D., Cheshmehzangi A., Ahmad J., Šegalo S., Pereira da Veiga C., Xiang Y.T. Public health crises and Ukrainian refugees. Brain Behav. Immun. 2022;103:243–245. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2022.05.004. PubMed DOI PMC

Platform on International Communication on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) [(accessed on 27 September 2022)]. Available online: www.picum.org/publications.

Holt E. Growing concern over Ukrainian refugee health. Lancet. 2022;399:1213–1214. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00568-2. PubMed DOI

Odone A., Buttigieg S., Ricciardi W., Azzopardi-Muscat N., Staines A. Public health digitalization in Europe. Eur. J. Public Health. 2019;29((Suppl. 3)):28–35. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckz161. Erratum in Eur. J. Public Health 2021, 31, e1. PubMed DOI PMC

Baltaxe E., Czypionka T., Kraus M., Reiss M., Askildsen J.E., Grenkovic R., Lindén T.S., Pitter J.G., Rutten-van Molken M., Solans O., et al. Digital Health Transformation of Integrated Care in Europe: Overarching Analysis of 17 Integrated Care Programs. J. Med. Internet Res. 2019;21:e14956. doi: 10.2196/14956. PubMed DOI PMC

Kumar B.N., James R., Hargreaves S., Bozorgmehr K., Mosca D., Hosseinalipour S.M., AlDeen K.N., Tatsi C., Mussa R., Veizis A., et al. Meeting the health needs of displaced people fleeing Ukraine: Drawing on existing technical guidance and evidence. Lancet Reg. Health Eur. 2022;17:100403. doi: 10.1016/j.lanepe.2022.100403. PubMed DOI PMC

Ludvigsson J.F., Loboda A. Systematic review of health and disease in Ukrainian children highlights poor child health and challenges for those treating refugees. Acta Paediatr. 2022;111:1341–1353. doi: 10.1111/apa.16370. PubMed DOI PMC

Butenop J., Brake T., Mauder S., Razum O. Gesundheitliche Lage in der Ukraine vor Kriegsbeginn und ihre Relevanz für die Versorgung ukrainischer Geflüchteter in Deutschland: Literaturdurchsicht, Risikoanalyse und Prioritätensetzung [Health Situation in Ukraine Before Onset of War and Its Relevance for Health Care for Ukrainian Refugees in Germany: Literature Review, Risk Analysis, and Priority Setting] Gesundheitswesen. 2022;84:679–688. doi: 10.1055/a-1876-2423. PubMed DOI PMC

World Health Organization Mapping Health Systems’ Responsiveness to Refugee and Migrant Health Needs. 2021. [(accessed on 29 April 2022)]. Available online: https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240030640.

World Health Organisation WHO Report Shows Poorer Health Outcomes for Many Vulnerable Refugees and Migrants. [(accessed on 30 July 2022)]. Available online: https://www.who.int/news/item/20-07-2022-who-report-shows-poorer-health-outcomes-for-many-vulnerable-refugees-and-migrants.

Zenner D., Méndez A.R., Schillinger S., Val E., Wickramage K. Health and illness in migrants and refugees arriving in Europe: Analysis of the electronic personal health record system. J. Travel Med. 2022;2:taac035. doi: 10.1093/jtm/taac035. PubMed DOI PMC

Ehrenstein V., Kharrazi H., Lehmann H., Taylor C.O. Obtaining Data from Electronic Health Records. In: Gliklich R.E., Leavy M.B., Dreyer N.A., editors. Tools and Technologies for Registry Interoperability, Registries for Evaluating Patient Outcomes: A User’s Guide. 3rd ed. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); Rockville, MD, USA: 2019. [(accessed on 8 August 2022)]. Chapter 4. Available online: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK551878/ PubMed

Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), Department of Health and Human Services Health information technology: Standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria for electronic health record technology, 2014 edition; revisions to the permanent certification program for health information technology. Final rule. Fed. Regist. 2012;77:54163–54292. PubMed

Chan K.S., Fowles J.B., Weiner J.P. Review: Electronic health records and the reliability and validity of quality measures: A review of the literature. Med. Care Res. Rev. 2010;67:503–527. doi: 10.1177/1077558709359007. PubMed DOI

Langlois E.V., Haines A., Tomson G., Ghaffar A. Refugees: Towards better access to health-care services. Lancet. 2016;387:319–321. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)00101-X. PubMed DOI PMC

European Commission Commission Makes It Easier for Citizens to Access Health Data Securely across Borders. [(accessed on 30 July 2022)]. Available online: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_842.

European Commission Digital Health Europe. Citizens’ Secure Access to and Sharing of Health Data across Borders. [(accessed on 30 July 2022)]. Available online: https://digitalhealtheurope.eu/multi-stakeholder-communities/citizens-access/

United Nations Sustainable Development Department of Social and Economic Affairs. The 17 Goals. [(accessed on 8 August 2022)]. Available online: https://sdgs.un.org/

European Commission Electronic Cross Border Health Services. [(accessed on 8 August 2022)]. Available online: https://health.ec.europa.eu/ehealth-digital-health-and-care/electronic-cross-border-health-services_en.

Xiang D., Cai W. Privacy Protection and Secondary Use of Health Data: Strategies and Methods. Biomed Res. Int. 2021;2021:6967166. doi: 10.1155/2021/6967166. PubMed DOI PMC

McGraw D., Mandl K.D. Privacy protections to encourage use of health-relevant digital data in a learning health system. NPJ Digit. Med. 2021;4:2. doi: 10.1038/s41746-020-00362-8. PubMed DOI PMC

Jensen P.B., Jensen L.J., Brunak S. Mining electronic health records: Towards better research applications and clinical care. Nat. Rev. Genet. 2012;13:395–405. doi: 10.1038/nrg3208. PubMed DOI

Kostick-Quenet K., Mandl K.D., Minssen T., Cohen I.G., Gasser U., Kohane I., McGuire A.L. How NFTs could transform health information exchange. Science. 2022;375:500–502. doi: 10.1126/science.abm2004. PubMed DOI PMC

Zhang A., Lin X. Towards Secure and Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing in e-Health Systems via Consortium Blockchain. J. Med. Syst. 2018;42:140. doi: 10.1007/s10916-018-0995-5. PubMed DOI

Cernian A., Tiganoaia B., Sacala I., Pavel A., Iftemi A. PatientDataChain: A Blockchain-Based Approach to Integrate Personal Health Records. Sensors. 2020;20:6538. doi: 10.3390/s20226538. PubMed DOI PMC