ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Regulatory Science
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1639342
This article is part of the Research TopicPushing Boundaries in EHR Implementation and Innovation through Advanced Digital Health TechnologiesView all 3 articles
Possibilities for Secondary Data Use of Electronic Health Records with WiseSpace De-identification
Provisionally accepted
- Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia
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Introduction: The secondary use of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) holds significant potential for advancing research, public health, and innovation. However, data sharing is often limited by privacy regulations, requirements, and technical complexity. This study introduces Design Science (DS) research on the evidence-based design of WiseSpace – a tool specifically tailored to address these challenges by enabling the secure, regulation-compliant de-identification of healthcare data, particularly for non-technical users. Methods: The research utilizes DS methodology to develop and evaluate the de-identification solution. This approach includes problem investigation through literature review, existing method and tool evaluation, and expert interviews; treatment design based on the identified challenges; treatment validation; and treatment implementation. Results: WiseSpace provides tools for personal, identifiable health data detection, de-identification, and re-identification as well as risk assessment. The tool supports common health data standards and its intuitive user interface allows healthcare professionals, individuals, and researchers to perform data management-related tasks without requiring technical expertise. Discussion: WiseSpace addresses critical gaps in existing anonymization solutions by providing domain-specific support for healthcare data and ensuring compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the European Health Data Space (EHDS). It offers automation and risk mitigation solutions and simplifies workflow, enabling secondary data use. Use cases demonstrate the solution's utility for organizations and individuals.
Keywords: de-identification, anonymization, Pseudonymization, Electronic health records (EHRs), secondary use, European HealthData Space (EHDS), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Received: 01 Jun 2025; Accepted: 12 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Vovk, Ghasempour, Piho and Ross. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Olga Vovk, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.