Event highlights
Within the framework of the Technical Support Instrument (TSI), funded by the European Commission, WHO/Europe and the Ministry of Health of Spain convened a Datathon from 16–18 June 2026 at the Instituto de Salud Carlos III in Madrid.
The Datathon focused on developing and testing the foundations of a unified patient classification and nursing staff allocation model for the Spanish National Health System (Sistema Nacional de Salud). This is the first initiative of its kind led by WHO and among the first undertaken by a ministry of health in collaboration with public sector partners to address patient complexity and nursing workforce planning through a data-driven, collaborative approach.
Designed as an intensive technical working forum, the Datathon brought together multidisciplinary teams to transform available data and expert knowledge into actionable prototypes. Participants contributed to building consensus on a common minimum dataset and care complexity variables, while identifying practical pathways for validation, pilot testing and integration into national and regional workforce planning mechanisms.
Using appropriately anonymized real-world data provided by Spain’s Autonomous Communities, participants also tested modelling approaches, harmonized variables and advanced the development of a national framework for assessing individual care complexity and informing nursing workforce allocation.
Efforts to tackle challenges affecting the health workforce
The Spanish National Health System faces persistent challenges related to nursing workforce shortages, regional disparities in workforce distribution, a growing demand for long-term and complex care and the need to better align workforce planning with population health needs and evolving models of service delivery.
A key structural gap is the absence of a nationally validated and interoperable patient classification system capable of assessing individual care complexity and supporting evidence-informed nursing workforce allocation across care settings, including acute hospitals, primary care, long-term care services and long-term care nursing homes.
The Datathon marked an important step from conceptual design to practical implementation. By combining technical expertise, clinical knowledge and policy perspectives, it supported the development of a prototype capable of informing future national and regional planning processes and strengthening the evidence base for nursing workforce decisions.
Participants
Approximately 60 national stakeholders from across Spain joined the event, organized into multidisciplinary teams, including:
- technical experts in data engineering, data science, machine learning, digital health, application development and health information systems;
- nursing leaders, care directors, clinical professionals, experts in care complexity assessment, service managers and policy-makers;
- representatives from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, academic institutions and technical partners providing methodological, analytical and interoperability expertise; and
- representatives from WHO/Europe and the European Commission's Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support.
The TSI project
The TSI project, funded by the European Commission, supports selected European Union Member States in designing and implementing health system reforms.
Building on the results of the 2022 TSI multicountry project with Austria, Belgium and Slovenia, known as the EU Health Resources Hub, the project runs for 24 months and focuses on critical technical areas. Its implementation is organized into 3 thematic clusters:
- Cluster 1. Strengthening health-care workforce in Italy and Spain;
- Cluster 2. Rethinking the role of hospitals in preventive health-care delivery in Germany and Sweden; and
- Cluster 3. Long-term care in Malta.
Despite differing contexts, the projects are closely aligned in their objectives, methodologies and strategic focus on system transformation.