EASO has joined CHAIN, the European Cardiovascular Health data and AI Network, a new three-year collaboration focused on the safe, effective and scalable implementation of artificial intelligence in cardiovascular care.
CHAIN convenes 53 partners from 20 countries, and is coordinated by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). On 7-8 October 2026, partners met in Sophia Antipolis (France) to launch the collaboration and begin work across its clinical, data, regulatory and implementation activities.
CHAIN aims to turn promising AI approaches into practical healthcare solutions
AI has the potential to support earlier detection, risk prediction and clinical decision-making. CHAIN will focus on the practical conditions needed for implementation, bringing together a federated data ecosystem, AI evaluation and deployment services, regulatory support and six real-world use cases. CHAIN will assess not only technical performance, but also clinical utility, fairness, usability, explainability and responsible deployment.
Learning from real-world use cases
Six cardiovascular use cases will explore how AI can be implemented across different clinical workflows and healthcare settings. This work will generate practical evidence on how AI can be integrated into routine care to better support patients, while also helping healthcare professionals use these tools effectively.
Connecting health data while keeping it under local control
A central element of CHAIN is CardioData@EU, a federated cardiovascular data and AI ecosystem designed to align with the European Health Data Space. This will enable collaboration and evaluation across settings without centralising personal health data.
Supporting wider uptake across European healthcare systems
CHAIN will build on existing European AI work, focusing on how these approaches can be validated and used responsibly in practice. The project will also produce practical tools, guidance and training to help healthcare systems adopt trustworthy AI and support the goals of the EU Safe Hearts Plan.
EASO is pleased to be a part of the CHAIN consortium, supporting the sharing of evidence, skills and learning across the professional obesity community in Europe.
For more information about #CHAINflagship, visit:
The CHAIN project is co-funded by the European Union’s EU4Health programme under Grant Agreement No. 101314833.
Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or HaDEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
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