NACIONALAIS VESELIBAS DIENESTS

Their core work

NACIONALAIS VESELIBAS DIENESTS (NVD) is Latvia's National Health Service — the government authority responsible for healthcare financing, insurance administration, and digital health coordination at the national level. In the EU research arena, NVD acts as a national health authority voice: it convenes high-level eHealth policy events and contributes to technical frameworks for cross-border electronic health record exchange. Their added value in European consortia is representing a real national health system with live data flows — laboratory results, hospital discharge reports, medical imaging — not just research prototypes. They sit at the intersection of health policy and digital infrastructure, making them a credible national competent authority partner for eHealth standardization projects.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In 2015, NVD's focus was broad eHealth advocacy — patient empowerment, mHealth apps, and general ICT adoption in healthcare — typical of a national authority trying to shape the digital health agenda early in the EU eHealth policy cycle. By 2020, their engagement had shifted to technically specific interoperability work: the EHRxF standard, defined data types (laboratory results, hospital discharge reports, medical imaging), and rare diseases as a cross-border challenge. This trajectory follows EU eHealth policy: from raising awareness and setting direction in the mid-2010s, toward implementing concrete data exchange standards in the early 2020s.

NVD is moving deeper into technical health data standardization, making them a natural fit for projects building on the European Health Data Space (EHDS) — where national health authorities are required implementation partners.

How they like to work

NVD has taken both a leadership role (coordinating EHW15) and a supporting participant role (X-eHealth), suggesting flexibility depending on project scope. Both projects were Coordination and Support Actions rather than research grants, which reflects NVD's identity as a policy and coordination body rather than a laboratory. Their 35 unique partners across 19 countries from just two projects points to large, multi-stakeholder consortia typical of CSA projects where national health authorities from across the EU sit together.

NVD has connected with 35 distinct consortium partners across 19 countries through only two projects — unusually broad reach for such a small portfolio, reflecting the large multi-country composition typical of EU eHealth coordination actions. No geographic concentration is visible beyond the general EU health authority network.

What sets them apart

NVD's value is precisely what it is: a functioning national health authority, not a university or consultancy. When EU eHealth projects need a real national competent authority to validate interoperability frameworks, test data exchange against live national systems, or provide a policy bridge to a Baltic member state, NVD fills that role. For Latvia specifically, they are very likely the only organization that can speak authoritatively for the national health information system in cross-border eHealth consortia.

Highlights from their portfolio

• EHW15
  NVD coordinated this EUR 300,000 High Level eHealth Conference — rare for a national public health authority to hold the lead coordinator role in an EU action rather than simply endorsing it.
• X-eHealth
  This project developed the EU Electronic Health Record Exchange Format (EHRxF), a foundational standard for the European Health Data Space, giving NVD direct technical exposure to the core of EU cross-border health data policy.