Training Europe’s clinicians for the data era — SUSA is a small but smart start

• EU-backed SUSA will embed advanced digital skills into 46 degree programmes and 16 mid-career modules, targeting ~6.6k graduates plus 660 professionals over four years.

• The scale is modest versus Europe’s 1.2m health-worker shortfall, but it aligns neatly with EHDS and the AI Act, which raise the bar for data governance and AI use in care.

What happened

On January 2025, a consortium of 12 European universities launched SUSA (Sustainable Healthcare with Digital Health Data Competence), a €12.4m Digital Europe project to upskill doctors, nurses and allied professionals in AI/data-driven care pathways. It also brings SMEs into curriculum design and internships to close the “skills-to-practice” gap.

Context & data

• Training capacity: SUSA targets 6,558 graduates across 20 bachelor’s and 26 master’s programmes, plus 660 mid-career professionals over four years; five SMEs will provide input and placements (FT, March 2025; University of Oulu project page, Feb 2025).

• Workforce gap: The EU faced an estimated 1.2m shortfall of doctors, nurses and midwives (as of 2022), with ageing staff and burnout key drivers (European Parliament briefing, 29 January 2025).

• Data rules tailwind: The European Health Data Space (EHDS) Regulation was adopted 11 February 2025 and published 5 March 2025, setting requirements for EHR systems and secondary use of health data, tightening interoperability and governance expectations (EUR-Lex, 5 March 2025).

• AI compliance clock: The EU AI Act entered into force on 1 August 2024; phased application starts from 2025, escalating obligations for high-risk clinical AI and general-purpose models—driving demand for AI literacy and risk management across providers (European Commission, 1 August 2024).

My take

From a PE lens, I see SUSA as capacity-building infrastructure that increases the absorptive capacity of Europe’s health systems. The output (≈1.7k trained people per year) won’t fix staffing shortages, but it could materially improve adoption rates for digital tools already bought but under-used—an endemic issue that drags realised ROI on EHR/AI deployments. Tighter EHDS/EHR requirements and the AI Act’s risk-management duties create regulatory pull for skills; SUSA supplies early cohorts who can operationalise this.

Where’s the investable angle? I’d look at B2B training/assessment platforms aligned to EHDS/AI Act competencies, workflow/QA layers that evidence compliance (model monitoring, data lineage, bias audits), and vertical AI copilot vendors with strong integration into EHRs. Unit economics can be attractive where products displace admin time (e.g., AI note-summarisation) with fast payback and >80% gross margins, provided procurement includes training and change-management budgets. SUSA’s SME internships are a useful on-ramp for these vendors to prove value in vivo.

Valuation-wise, I’d discount hype around “AI in hospitals” and prioritise land-and-expand plays with measurable KPIs (time-to-first-value, clinician adoption, safety incidents, audit pass rates). The policy backdrop should support stickier ARR as compliance needs harden. The question is execution: aligning curricula across nine countries and ensuring placements translate to scalable deployments, not pilots that die in committee.

Risks & watch-list

• Implementation risk: Fragmented curricula and variable faculty capacity across institutions could slow graduate quality and portability.

• Regulatory friction: EHDS and AI Act secondary legislation/guidance may evolve; compliance scope creep could burden SMEs and providers.

• Adoption gap: Culture and workflow change remain the bottleneck; without protected time and incentives, new skills may not translate to usage.

• Funding durability: Digital Europe money is time-boxed; ongoing scale likely needs national health systems and industry co-funding.