Building digital competence for the future of healthcare
SUSA – Sustainable Healthcare with Digital Health Data Competence is a European initiative dedicated to strengthening the digital skills of current and future health professionals.
This project addresses the growing need for health professionals who can confidently work with health data, digital technologies and emerging forms of artificial intelligence, while understanding their ethical, regulatory and societal implications.
Learning Together
SUSA follows a co-design and co-delivery approach, bringing together educators, healthcare professionals, researchers, technology specialists and other stakeholders.
The project develops Shared Learning Experiences (SLEs) and reusable educational resources that can be adapted and shared across institutions. This allows our partners to learn from one another while making sure that education remains connected to real-world healthcare needs.
A Collaborative European Project
bringing together a diverse consortium of
12
Higher Education Institutions from 9 European countries
6
SMEs, a research center, a hospital, and two European networking organizations
19
Associated Partners, institutions and organizations supporting ecosystem engagement
What does SUSA do?
SUSA integrates advanced digital health competences into 20 Bachelor’s and 26 Master’s degree programmes, alongside 16 self-standing lifelong-learning modules. The educational offer is designed for a diverse community of learners, including students, educators and healthcare professionals. It focuses on practical and transferable competences in areas such as:
- Health data and data sharing
- Data analytics and visualisation
- Artificial intelligence
- Digital health technologies and data infrastructures
- Cybersecurity
- Health data regulation and governance
- Sustainability
- Global health and digital transformation
SUSA works with existing educational programmes and institutional expertise to embed digital health competences into long-term education and professional development.
Who We Train
SUSA aims to reach 6,558 graduates and 660 professionals within the digital health sector.
Undergraduate & Postgraduate Students
Students in health and related fields looking to build foundational digital health competence.
Healthcare Professionals
Practitioners seeking to upskill or reskill in modern digital health technologies.
Educators & Trainers
Academic professionals developing and modernizing health curricula.
Employers & Industry
Organizations across health and life sciences sectors seeking digitally skilled talent.
Policymakers & Ecosystem Stakeholders
Decision-makers shaping the broader European health ecosystem.
The SUSA Educational Framework
SUSA represents a forward-thinking educational model that integrates traditional academic learning with industry-led digital education. It addresses critical gaps in healthcare digital competencies, preparing students to reach key Learning Objectives (LO):
Data Sharing
LO1. Critically evaluate the potential of emerging digital data-driven technologies to improve health outcomes and healthcare systems by considering their effectiveness, ethical implications, feasibility, and impact across diverse populations and contexts.
LO2. Recognize data flows in healthcare system.
LO3. Comply with European values and data regulation, such as EHDS, GDPR, FAIR, trustworthy AI guidelines.
Data Analytics
LO4. Examine the role of data and data quality in trustworthiness of AI and analytics.
LO5. Apply appropriate methods for summarizing, analysing, and visually representing data to support interpretation and decision-making.
Ethics of AI
LO6. Discuss ethical aspects in adoption of AI in decision making.
LO7. Indicate regulation related to adoption and use of AI in health.
Basics of AI
LO8. Explain what AI is and what it is not.
LO9. Differentiate and critically relate major paradigms and approaches within artificial intelligence by understanding their underlying principles, capabilities, and application contexts.
LO10. Explain basic machine learning: supervised learning, unsupervised learning, federated learning and reinforcement learning.
LO11. Examine the potential of diverse digital and biomedical data infrastructures—including connected devices, sensing technologies, imaging, genomic data, and distributed data systems—to generate and mobilize data for care, research, and decision-making.
LO12. Examine the potential of digital infrastructures, such as EHR, patient, registries, robotics, VR/XR.
LO13. Examine challenges and enablers of syntactic and semantic interoperability within health data ecosystems and the role of standards and ontologies.
LO14. Examine sustainability, eco-responsiblity and scalability elements of data sharing and infostructures.
LO15. Distinguish security and privacy challenges in health context.
LO16. Discuss privacy and security challenges and approaches.
LO17. Identify relevant regulative frameworks in Europe and globally.
LO18. Apply accessibility guidelines in health applications.
LO19. Discuss the role of digital health data in global health, such as pandemic response, supporting mobility and achieving equity.
LO20. Analyse impact of digital health, including benefits, limitations, impact to safety and ethical issues.
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V2
Isomursu, M., Bardhi, O., Berler, et al (2025). Advanced Digital Skills for Health Professionals: 20 Joint Learning Objectives. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 327, 1084–1085. https://doi.org/10.3233/SHTI250550
How the Project is Conducted
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SUSA is co-funded by the European Union. This project is implemented through a European partnership dedicated to strengthening digital competencies and supporting sustainable development in healthcare education and practice.