Real-World Health Data (RWD) is expanding at unprecedented scale-generated through every clinical encounter, diagnosis, laboratory measurement, prescription, procedure, and health-related transaction. These digital traces form a high-resolution map of how health systems function in real clinical settings, for real patients, across time. Properly harnessed, they enable evidence grounded not only in controlled trials, but in the lived complexity of everyday care.

Yet transforming raw data into actionable knowledge is far from trivial. Meaningful reuse requires robust data linkage across heterogeneous sources, harmonisation of vocabularies and formats, interoperable data models, scalable analytical pipelines, and adaptive governance frameworks. Ethics approvals and regulatory processes must evolve in parallel with technological capability.

When these foundations are in place, large-scale health data enables questions of direct societal impact: Where does care delivery create measurable value? How do outcomes vary across populations? Which interventions work in routine practice? Combined with modern AI methods, RWD opens the door to proactive, adaptive health systems – capable of earlier detection, personalised prevention, and continuous learning at population scale.

This seminar convenes the key actors shaping that transformation: researchers developing advanced analytics and AI systems; clinicians articulating real-world needs; health-system leaders responsible for implementation; and decision-makers guiding national funding and governance.

Seminar schedule:

15:45 Gathering, wolcome coffee and start of poster session

16:15–17:30 Session I

16:15 Opening words from Head of the Institute of Computer Science and Professor of Bioinformatics Jaak Vilo

16:20 Alar Irs, University of Tartu Hospital; Chief Medical Officer at Estonian Medicines Agency, “The Hunger for Data – the clinical demand for integrated, decision-supportive information”

16:45 Kerli Mooses, Research Fellow of Health Informatics at the University of Tartu, “The Est-Health-30 database: infrastructure, real-world collaboration with clinicians, and analytical capacity”

17:10 Tuomo Hartonen / Andrea Ganna, University of Helsinki, “DelFI - Towards a foundation model for Finnish health and registry data”

17:35–18:00 Poster session and networking break

18:00–19:15 Session II

18:00 Karl-Henrik Peterson, Member of Board at the Estonian Health Insurance Fund, “AI Vision in Estonian Health Care – system-level transformation and the promise of Delphi-2M–scale solutions”

18:25 Marten Juurik, Head of the Unit of Research Integrity at the Estonian Research Council, “Ethics reform in Estonia – evolving approval frameworks for large-scale data research”

18:50 Triin Laisk, Professor of Genomic Epidemiology at the University of Tartu, “The Hidden Half – advancing women’s health research through national-scale data resources”

19:15 Poster session and networking continues

The academic organisers of this event are the Head of the Institute of Computer Science and Professor of Bioinformatics Jaak Vilo and Research Fellow of Health Informatics Kerli Mooses. The seminar takes place in English.

In addition to two high-density scientific sessions, the programme includes an extended networking reception with refreshments and a curated poster session showcasing ongoing work across the ecosystem.

An opportunity to present your own poster is available.
The poster must be in A0 format and portrait orientation. If you plan to bring your own printed poster, please inform us by writing to [email protected]. If you would like us to print it for you, please send the PDF file to the same email address by 15 March at the latest. In that case, your poster will be put up before the start of the seminar.

This event is designed for researchers, clinicians, policymakers, funders, and innovators working at the intersection of health data, AI, and system transformation.

Join us to explore how Estonia – and its partners – are building the next generation of data-driven health systems.

This seminar is supported by:

TeamPerMed Centre for Data-Enriched Personalised Medicine
An interdisciplinary centre advancing personalised medicine through real-world data, AI, and clinical transformation.

EXAI – Estonian Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence
A national centre fostering foundational and applied AI research for trustworthy, societally beneficial systems.

STACC – A data science company with a strong R&D focus
An Estonian data science company combining research excellence with real-world analytics solutions.