The Belgian healthcare landscape is rapidly evolving toward standardized, interoperable data exchange. With the European Health Data Space (EHDS) requirements approaching in 2027 and Belgium's ambitious eHealth Action Plan 2025-2027 underway, hospitals face mounting pressure to modernize their data infrastructure. By combining Amaron's FHIR portfolio with Tiro.health's clinical expertise, hospitals gain a powerful solution that addresses both immediate clinical needs and future regulatory requirements.
Why hospitals need both structured data and FHIR now
Healthcare professionals struggle with documentation burden while trying to capture quality data for registries and research. Simultaneously, IT departments grapple with complex integration requirements for data exchange mandates and FHIR compliance.
In Belgium, the TAVI (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation) registry exemplifies this challenge perfectly. Hospitals must register implant data within 90 days for RIZIV/INAMI reimbursement, capture follow-up data within 30 days, and ensure all information flows seamlessly to Sciensano. This isn't just about filling forms; it's about creating a sustainable data ecosystem that serves multiple purposes simultaneously.
As outlined in Belgium's new vision for healthcare registries, the shift toward federated data systems and structured data capture at source is becoming mandatory rather than optional. This regulatory pressure creates urgency for hospitals to implement robust solutions now.
Complementary strengths: where clinical expertise meets technical innovation
Tiro.health's clinical foundation
Tiro.health brings deep clinical understanding and proven structured data capture capabilities. The platform transforms free-text documentation into SNOMED CT-coded, research-ready data. Tiro.health understands the nuances of clinical workflows, from pathology synoptic reporting to surgical quality registries.
This expertise in structured reporting aligns with the broader shift in healthcare toward standardized documentation that improves both clinical care and data quality. The focus remains on capturing data at the source in ways that are both clinically valuable and technically interoperable. Understanding what SNOMED CT is provides context for why this standardized terminology forms the foundation of modern healthcare interoperability. As the global standard for clinical terminology, SNOMED CT ensures that medical concepts maintain their meaning across different systems and borders.
Amaron's technical infrastructure
Amaron contributes robust standards-based interoperability and process automation expertise. FHIR Station creates a secure gateway between data sources and consumers, while Workflower automates complex clinical processes using BPMN models. This technical foundation ensures that captured data flows seamlessly across systems and institutions.
For organizations new to these concepts, our FHIR starter's guide explains how this modern interoperability standard revolutionizes healthcare data exchange.
Supporting the complete data lifecycle
The combined approach supports the entire journey from data capture to reuse:
Smart data capture at the source
Clinicians use Tiro.health's intuitive templates with voice input, presets, and automatic text generation. Every data point is immediately coded with SNOMED CT, ensuring semantic consistency from the moment of documentation.
This structured approach offers significant advantages over traditional narrative reporting. As explained in our comprehensive guide to structured reporting with SNOMED CT, template-based synoptic reports achieve 98% completeness versus 77% for narrative reports, directly impacting clinical decision-making quality.
The broader context of health technology standards shows how SNOMED CT fits within the ecosystem of interoperability standards that modern healthcare requires.
Seamless FHIR transformation
Tiro.health directly outputs structured data as FHIR Questionnaires and QuestionnaireResponses. Amaron's infrastructure then stores and manages these standardized responses, making the data immediately interoperable with regional FHIR vaults like Vitalink and national initiatives like BIHR and, in the longer run, EHDS.
Intelligent pre-population and reuse
Through FHIR Station, existing FHIR resources can be queried to pre-fill forms with patient demographics, recent lab values, and previous observations. This "register once, reuse infinitely" approach eliminates duplicate data entry across departments.
Automated workflows and compliance
Workflower tracks deadlines, triggers follow-up tasks, and helps ensure timely submission to registries. For TAVI procedures, this means automatic reminders for 30-day follow-ups and guaranteed compliance with RIZIV/INAMI requirements.
This process automation becomes increasingly important given Belgium's evolving registry requirements, which emphasize timely and complete data capture as detailed in our analysis of Belgium's new vision for healthcare registries.
Real-time analytics and research capabilities
Through SQL on FHIR and ViewDefinitions, data becomes immediately available for quality dashboards, benchmarking initiatives, and research studies. The same data supporting clinical care enables population health insights.
Our multicentric quality benchmarks project demonstrates these capabilities in action, showing how standardized data capture enables meaningful cross-institutional comparison and identifies concrete improvement opportunities.
Real-world example: the TAVI use case
Consider a cardiology department implementing TAVI procedures. Previously, they juggled paper forms, Excel sheets, and manual registry submissions.
With the combined offering, several transformations occur:
- Procedure documentation becomes faster with voice-enabled templates.
- Follow-up compliance improves through automated reminders.
- Registry submission happens automatically upon form completion.
- Quality metrics update in real-time for departmental meetings.
- Research teams can immediately identify eligible patients for studies.
The outcome? Clinicians spend more time with patients, administrators meet compliance requirements effortlessly, and researchers access high-quality data instantly.
Preparing for Belgium's digital health future
EHDS readiness from day one
The collaboration between Amaron and Tiro.health provides hospitals with tools to position themselves ahead of upcoming regulatory changes. The European Health Data Space Regulation requires full interoperability and standardized terminology for all healthcare institutions by 2029.
Organizations using the combined offering already have:
- Fully FHIR-compliant data infrastructure meeting technical specifications for cross-border data exchange
- SNOMED CT-coded clinical documentation for all primary diagnoses and findings
- Automated cross-border data exchange capabilities via standard FHIR interfaces
- Research-ready datasets in both FHIR and OMOP formats, depending on the use case
- Proven interoperability with Belgian health data ecosystems
Beyond compliance: creating a learning health system
The true value of our collaboration extends beyond regulatory checkboxes. We’re enabling hospitals to become learning health systems where every patient interaction contributes to collective knowledge. Quality improvements that once took months of manual chart review now happen in real-time. Research questions that seemed impossible to answer become straightforward database queries.
Getting started: a pragmatic approach
Hospitals don't need to transform everything overnight. The combined offering supports incremental adoption:
Phase 1: Start with a single high-value use case
Begin with one valuable application such as TAVI registries, cancer pathology reporting, or multicentric quality studies. Choose a use case with clear regulatory requirements or measurable clinical benefits.
Phase 2: Prove the concept
Demonstrate measurable time savings and quality improvements. Document concrete results such as increased data completeness, reduced documentation time, or improved registry compliance.
Phase 3: Expand gradually
Move to other departments while ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. Use lessons learned in the pilot to accelerate implementation in other contexts.
Phase 4: Build on success
Add advanced functionality such as AI-assisted documentation.
The path forward
Belgian healthcare stands at a crossroads. The organizations that successfully navigate the transition to structured, interoperable data will lead in quality, research, and patient outcomes.
Our collaboration with Amaron provides the clinical expertise and technical infrastructure to make this transformation achievable for any hospital, regardless of size or current IT maturity. In this way they can lighten the workload of their clinical teams tired of documentation burdens, IT departments overwhelmed by integration requirements, and quality managers struggling with data collection.
Interested in how your hospital can benefit?
Contact us for a demonstration tailored to your specific clinical workflows and data requirements. We're happy to show how Tiro.health and Amaron together can accelerate your transition to structured, interoperable healthcare.
