DACO is currently under development, and its future tasks will be shaped based on the Health Data Use Act (Gesundheitsdatennutzungsgesetz, GDNG). DACO collaborates closely with national and European partners to facilitate access to health data for important purposes, such as research aimed at improving healthcare, and to ensure Germany's seamless integration into the EHDS.

Our future responsibilities

According to the GDNG, DACO will assume the following responsibilities in the future:

• Consultation and Support: Assisting with the identification and location of relevant health data, advising on data applications, and facilitating communication with data-holding institutions.
• Enhancing Data Accessibility and Transparency: Developing and maintaining a public metadata catalog that provides information about available health data in Germany.
• Application Management: Receiving and forwarding applications for access to health data to the responsible institutions.
• Communication: Providing information about DACO’s activities and fostering an open dialogue.
• Maintaining an Application Register: Creating a public register that tracks submitted applications and their outcomes.
• Technical Concepts: Developing solutions for secure processing environments and linking pseudonymized data.
• Support for Policymakers: DACO aims to improve the availability of health data to enable well-informed decision-making based on current data.
• Establishing a Working Group on Health Data Use: DACO is planning to create a working group where representatives of all relevant stakeholders—such as patient organizations and data users—can collaborate on solutions for the use of health data.

European Integration: The EHDS

DACO will play a key role in establishing the EHDS framework for the secondary use of health data (HealthData@EU) in Germany. The goal is to closely integrate Germany into the European infrastructure and support the shared use of health data across the EU.