Professor of Public Health, Università Cattolica S. Cuore; Digital Health Expert, Ministry of Health, Italy; Chair Stakeholders’ Fora, EHDS2; Co-Chair, Global Digital Health Partnership WS
Fidelia Cascini is Professor of Hygiene and Public Health at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy), where she teaches on general and applied hygiene and public health, digital health, risk management, health information systems.
As a Digital Health expert engaged by the Italian Ministry of Health on European and national initiatives (EU Joint Actions, Next Generation EU-Italy implemetation plans on digital health), she is currently involved in the following EU projects: Xt-HER – Extended EHR@EU Data Space for Primary Use; QUANTUM – Quality, Utility and Maturity Measured; SUSTAIN-HTA – Support Utilisation of Sustainable and TAilored INnovative methods for HTA; TEHDAS2 – Towards European Health Data Space 2; EUVAC – EUropean Digital VAccination Card – Joint Action, Programma EU 4Health; SHAIPED – Supporting Health Data Access Bodies to establish AI pathways enabling Deployment of AI as medical device tools – Coordination and Support Action, Digital Europe Programme; MyHealth@myhand – Supporting patients’ access to their health data in the context of healthcare services for citizens across the EU – Digital Europe Programme.
From June 2022 to March 2024, she was the Italian national delegate at the Working Party on Public Health of the EU Council, for the negoziation of the European Health Data Space Regulation proposal.
Fidelia Cascini is Chair of the Steering Board of the Community of Practice of the European Health Data Space for the secondary use of health data (EHDS2), and former Chair of Stakeholders’ Fora within the Health Data Access Bodies Community of Practice for the secondary use of health data in scope of European Health Data Space (EHDS2). She is a member of the National Coordination Centre of Territorial Ethics Committees for clinical trials on medicinal products for human use and medical devices, established at the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA), and member of the Coordination Unit of the working group for the creation of the New Portal for Transparency of Health Services at the National Agency of Regional Health Services (Agenas). Fidelia is also Co-Chair at the Global Digital Health Partnership (GDHP), Clinical and Human Engagement Work Stream, Italian Representative at the European Observatory on Health Care Systems and Policies (WHO), member of the Advisory Board of the Tendering HADEA/2023/OP/0024 “Capacity Building for Secondary Uses of Health Data for the European Health Data Space”, member of the Steering Committee of the Research Center “Safety and Quality of Care for Protection of Patient and Health Profession” at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, and member of the Strategic Partners’ Initiative for Data and Digital Health (SPI-DDH) of the World Health Organization (WHO), European Region. She was also a member of the Data Coordination Unit Task Force, as established in March 2020 by the Prime Minister’s office for the COVID-19 emergency. She acted as digital health expert of the Ministry of Health in the working group on investments for Telemedicine managed by the National Agency of Regional Health Services (Agenas).
She is author of 4 monographs on healthcare risk management and patient safety and author of more than 70 scientific research papers, of which 57 are indexed on Scopus (almost always appearing as first author), and of publications on Q1 and Q2 level journals for research in the field of public health and digital technologies.
