Diagnostics are the starting point of almost every form of healthcare. Because laboratory diagnostics are used in all healthcare domains, the sector has a fragmented landscape of systems, standards and working methods. At a time when healthcare is under increasing pressure, the situation is no longer sustainable. During the Zorg & ICT event, Sjoerd Visser and Daniël Schut shared their vision and approach to keeping healthcare accessible, affordable and innovative in a joint knowledge session.
Both speakers in this knowledge session have been working on the transition to a national diagnostics network for some time. Sjoerd Visser is CIO at Unilabs Netherlands and Daniël Schut works as team manager for information exchange at Enovation (part of Legrand Care). Their experience demonstrates that this transition is not merely a technical exercise, but, above all, a strategic choice to keep healthcare accessible, affordable and innovative.
According to Daniël and Sjoerd, diagnostics is more than simply receiving a request and returning a result. It links general practitioners, hospitals, pharmacies, long-term care organisations, mental health services and patients. There is an increasing need for a comprehensive view of the patient, spanning domains and regions. At the same time, the Dutch diagnostics market is competitive and highly fragmented. Many laboratories operate on a relatively small scale, making it difficult to invest in innovation and digitisation, yet that is exactly what is needed now. After all, healthcare costs are rising, the pressure on staff is increasing and patients expect better digital access to their data.
According to Unilabs, which operates in fourteen countries and is the largest diagnostics provider in Europe, an important part of the solution lies in scale. This increase in scale is not achieved by reducing regional involvement, but by establishing a national and even international foundation. In the Netherlands, Unilabs operates from four laboratories, with more than 300 blood collection points and a strong regional network. This regional focus remains essential, as healthcare is provided locally.
The strength of Unilabs lies in combining that regional collaboration with the application of global scale. By sharing knowledge, capacity and innovation internationally, the organisation creates space to work more efficiently and to develop new diagnostic methods. Digitisation plays a key role in this, as does the smart and effective use of data.
Historically, each part of Unilabs worked with its own lab systems, integrations, viewers, portals and exchange solutions. This led to varying agreements on permissions, divergent regional infrastructures and limited reusability and scalability. At the same time, the demand for cross-domain data availability is increasing. Not only the applicant, but also other healthcare providers and patients require safe and complete access. Unilabs’ objective is to further standardise its own landscape and processes, while also achieving greater collaboration across the chain. In this way, the company will achieve a uniform and future-proof architecture that respects regional differences and enables national and international collaboration.
Enovation has supported Unilabs for many years in the fields of integration, standardisation and information exchange. Drawing on this experience, the organisation is working towards a national architecture for Unilabs, based on:
The core of Enovation’s approach is a central integration layer. Within this layer, data from the various laboratory systems converge and are translated into standardised formats such as EDIFACT, HL7 v2/v3, XDLab and HL7 FHIR. The data is then made available via the relevant networks. Examples include Secure Email, IHE-XDS, FHIR, APIs and MedMij, which ensure that both healthcare professionals and patients are fully integrated into the chain.
An important consideration in this transition is consent. Technically, much is already possible, but it must also be legally correct. This is particularly relevant in diagnostics, where results are often consulted by other healthcare providers than the original applicant. For this reason, Unilabs is connected to Mitz, the national consent facility, which allows patients to control who can access their data. This represents a crucial step towards secure and scalable data availability.
The first regions in the Netherlands (Central and West) have now been connected to the new infrastructure. Old and new components are temporarily made accessible side by side, ensuring continuity for healthcare providers. Thanks to the new infrastructure, there is now a single standardised patient portal, with support for PHR access via MedMij in these regions. In addition, the new architecture includes a Unilabs Viewer, which makes laboratory data available to those who need it within the chain.
With this architecture, Unilabs has laid the foundation for new developments relating to European Health Data Space (EHDS) and for further standardisation of language and technology. The adoption of terminologies such as LOINC will also play an increasingly important role.
The transition to national diagnostics demonstrates that data availability is not an end in itself. It is about trust, collaboration and supporting better care for today and tomorrow. Enovation and Unilabs combine standardisation with regional involvement, connecting technical tools with legal and organisational agreements. In this way, we are jointly laying a solid foundation for the future of diagnostics.
The pressure on healthcare is increasing. We want to keep healthcare affordable, improve the patient experience and reduce the burden on healthcare providers. At the same time, the focus is increasingly shifting from illness to health, and from treatment by individual healthcare organisations to collaboration in the region. During Zorg & ICT (Care & ICT), Fleur Maagdenberg and Glenn Bruins from Enovation (part of Legrand Care) outlined why regional collaboration is essential.
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The laboratories of Unilabs Netherlands, one of Europe's largest diagnostic organisations, in the Utrecht region were the first to “go live” with Enovation's Mitz connector in March.
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Data availability is essential for high-quality digital healthcare. Data must be accessible, usable, and relevant—with the patient’s consent. Both nationally and across Europe, through the EHDS, efforts are underway to enable secure and standardised data exchange.
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