EU’s Digital Wallet to Simplify Healthcare for Professionals

The Digital Professional Identity for physicians, an ambitious initiative launched within the European Union (EU), aims to provide citizens, organisations, and businesses with a secure and universal method to access both public and private services online and offline across all EU member states.

This initiative will serve as a tool for medical professionals to authenticate their identity and professional status securely and accurately in any online environment. It will be achieved through a verifiable electronic credential issued by the legitimate source of information. With this credential, the physician can share their identity with anyone, whenever needed, legally demonstrating that they are who they claim to be and that they are a registered physician authorised to practice medicine.

Implementation Process

In Spain, the General Council of Official Medical Associations (CGCOM) will be the provider of verifiable credentials for this European macro-project. “The digital professional identity will be issued through the European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet, regulated uniformly across the EU under the eIDAS2 regulation. This regulation establishes significant security measures and protections for personal data. For example, EU law requires that the technology used for this system prevents global observability of operations, ensuring that third parties, including issuing states, cannot access excessive information about professionals,” Dr María Isabel Moya, a radiologist and CGCOM’s first vice president, explained to El Médico Interactivo, a Medscape Network platform.

This digital professional identity aligns with the main goals of the digital health strategy, easing secure and unified access to any electronic health system. This includes electronic health records, telemedicine platforms, wellness applications, and electronic prescriptions, while preventing fraud and identity theft in medical activities, which is an essential measure for protecting public health. It will also enhance interoperability at both the national and cross-border levels for online medical activities.

Practical Application

According to Moya, “the idea is to make this process very simple for physicians.” A mobile application will allow professionals to access, store, and share credentials in real time, such as via QR code scanning.

“Obviously, the process behind the scenes is very complex, but it’s completely transparent for the user and the verifier,” she said.

The EUDI Wallet for medical professionals will allow doctors to present a doctor’s credential, a professional suitability credential, and training credentials (such as European Union of Medical Specialists and Good Medical Practice credits), ensuring the highest level of reliability for both professionals and patients.

Key Timeline

CGCOM is actively participating in an EU pilot project within the Digital Credentials for Europe consortium, led by the Spanish Government’s Secretariat for Digital Administration. The initiative aims to test the functionalities of the EUDI Wallet, which is regulated by the eIDAS2 regulation, in alignment with the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure, with use cases for professional medical credentials.

“Our main objective is to be able to issue medical credentials in the European portfolio and have these credentials recognised at the EU level,” Moya said.

However, she added, “the final technical approach for the EUDI Wallet is yet to be decided, and there are still aspects to clarify. But there are two key dates to keep in mind: In 2026, the application of eIDAS2 will become mandatory in, and by 2027, healthcare professionals are expected to have interoperable digital credentials across the EU.”

Expected Benefits

This process is clearly intended as a positive step forward. Regarding the benefits of implementing the Digital Professional Identity, Moya explained, “we expect it to provide utility, ease, and security in the sense that it will reduce the bureaucracy and complexity often added by technological processes, facilitate immediate and secure access to clinical information systems, allow us to sign documents, prescriptions, and certificates quickly, securely, and with legal validity throughout Europe, allow national and cross-border professional mobility without losing the authenticity of the information in real time, and guarantee the security of all online medical procedures, since the verifiable credentials stored in the EUDI Wallet are more secure than physical documents, reducing the risk of loss, theft, or forgery. At the same time, doctors will have greater control over their professional information and the credentials stored in their EUDI Wallet, being able to choose at any time what information/data to share and with whom.”

This will also translate into benefits for patients. “For patients, it provides security and confidence, ensuring access to verified professionals at all times. It will also improve services and efficiency by simplifying the electronic administrative procedures. One of the objectives of the eIDAS2 regulation is to enable individuals to access public and private services online under their own control,” Moya noted.

Challenges Ahead

“At the CGCOM, we value the establishment of a uniform legal framework for all member states, which provides security, trust, and real interoperability in medical care — both clinical and administrative — online, where fraud is easier and professional regulation is more challenging,” Moya summarised. However, she acknowledged that challenges remain in achieving this goal.

“Undoubtedly, there are challenges, including deciding on the technological tool that will best suit the implementation of this digital wallet, adapting the technology of organisations, institutions, companies, and platforms, as well as electronic health records. Additionally, there is the need to foster acceptance of this culture and provide training for professionals and citizens to use this identity,” she concluded.

This story was translated from El Médico Interactivo using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.