Creating synergies between different social security benefits and services as well as with other public-sector institutions is key to the development of an inclusive and cohesive society that protects individuals and fosters their skills, talents, resources and capabilities. This way, social security provides support, creates opportunities and empowers individuals through their life cycle (Calvo, Souto and Ortiz, 2022). Such integrated social security measures are important to support people in facing and overcoming disruptions, changes and transitions in their life with regard to employment, their family situation, care needs and others. To reach the necessary level of synergy, social security organizations are implementing data exchange initiatives and improving performance at a strategic, tactical and operational level with positive outcomes for the beneficiaries across institutional, interinstitutional, subnational and national levels.

When facing the need to support individuals in different stages of their lives, social security institutions' own data sometimes falls short of fully understanding the individual’s conditions and needs. This highlights the need to exchange and integrate numerous data sources to help deploy coordinated social security responses. In order to do so, managers and officers in institutions need to balance the time it takes institutions to operate, resources it takes to implement, compliance with regulations and scope for their data exchange initiatives while keeping in mind the need for inclusion by adopting multiple offline-online service delivery approaches to ensure that no one is left behind (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2022). This is a significant and complex endeavour, and the leadership of social security institutions must consider a range of technical, legal, budgetary, political, social and governance challenges.

The coordination of social security measures requires the implementation of inter-institutional data exchange initiatives. This, in turn, requires a data exchange mechanism to better support the execution by institutions. In order to achieve this, it is crucial for institutions to have the ability to exchange and share data with others. The implementation of better-connected social programmes is therefore required and can only be achieved by the implementation of inter-institutional data exchange initiatives.

To help organizations deal with these complexities, the International Social Security Association (ISSA) developed several guidelines specifically tailored to support social security institutions undertaking these projects. One of the guidelines is focused on data exchange, “Guideline 34. Data exchange” and is part of the series ISSA Guidelines on Information and Communication Technology (ISSA, 2022).

ISSA guideline on data exchange as a contribution to interoperability

“Guideline 34. Data exchange” provides insights into the key elements an information and communications technology (ICT) department should consider in the development of initiatives including data exchange. The diagram below provides a schematic overview of the guideline on Data exchange.

Figure 1. The standardized data exchange mechanism explained.

Source: Author, based on ISSA, 2022.

The guideline further establishes broader data exchange guidance to ensure these efforts have economies of scale and compliance with regulatory and normative frameworks. For this to occur, it is desirable that these data exchange mechanisms leverage or integrate into, standardized data exchange mechanisms by adopting and adapting international and institutional technical standards and models. This will allow institutions to “prevent fragmented specific data exchange business applications” (ISSA, 2022, p. 61).

Recently, European social security institutions have developed initiatives focused on supporting individuals during different life events. This has required data to be shared in different branches of social security. These initiatives show a variety of approaches for data exchange and singular characteristics that reinforce the need for a standardized data exchange mechanism. The experiences also show how data exchange has provided the basis to enable institutions to integrate front office applications that provide better or more integrated services to the members. In addition they have allowed institutions to change and streamline internal processes to improve services, and provided the means for backend integration, which is critical to coordinate functionality as well as provide data-driven and proactive services and banefits.

Recent European experiences involving data exchange

The following experiences show how data exchange has enabled social security institutions to support individuals through different life transitions, shedding light on various aspects of the data exchange and how this has helped institutions in supporting the population and their members.

E-prescription: Totally digital – Austrian Social Insurances

The Austrian Federation of Social Insurances (Dachverband der Österreichischen Sozialversicherungsträger – DÖS) developed an ambitious initiative (Federation of Social Insurances, 2024) to establish a totally digital medicines prescription process through the use of a robust data exchange infrastructure that included prescriptions from doctors or surgery premises, distribution of medicaments at the pharmacies and the billing process. As a result, an insured person can complete all the administrative process of receiving their medicines by just presenting their e-card, the e-prescription code, or the prescription ID without the need of any physical paper or printed recipe. This inter-institutional data exchange solution allows the institution to improve health services as well as support their members in their health needs throughout their life course.

In order to prepare the conditions for the development of the E-prescription: Totally digital initiative, an earlier phase was needed involving the relevant stakeholders to reach an agreement about the required specifications and the legal adjustments needed. After this preliminary phase, the technical implementation started in May 2019 and lasted for two years. The new e-prescription functionalities were then further integrated in the pharmacy´s and doctor´s systems,  significantly reducing the need for training or additional infrastructure. Additionally, a mobile application was developed and integrated with ID Austria (Federal Chancellery, 2023) in order to give the insured person the ability to interact with the system digitally (no paper prescriptions to be managed) and legally (advanced signature embedded in the mobile app). Once the e-prescription system was developed, a pilot operation was conducted for three months and led to the decision to expand the initiative throughout Austria. The implementation was finished by June 2022.

The flow of information among stakeholders was key to this innovation. The data about potential medicines to be prescribed by the physicians was integrated in their own information systems, the prescriptions were directly available at the front desk in the pharmacies, the prescribed medecines' information were ready for monitoring and tracking conveniently available in the mobile app of the insured person, and finally, the insurance institution would receive digitally all the medical and administrative information to close the cycle. The outcomes from this initiative included: the prevention of human error, a significant increase in transparency, and considerable financial and environmental savings thanks to 70 million prescriptions per year becoming digital.

Electronic System for the Individual Rehabilitation Programme, Azerbaijan

In 2020 the Individual Rehabilitation Programme (IRP) for persons with disabilities was approved in Azerbaijan. At the core of IRP is the development of a customized programme designed for the needs of each specific person with disabilities, including a holistic array of services intended to achieve “medical, vocational, psychological-pedagogical rehabilitation and the development of social skills of persons with disabilities” (DOST, 2024). This data exchange experience allows the institution to support transitions by incorporating different data sources and providing a new process for more integrated services to the beneficiaries.

The new information system for the rehabilitation programme allowed the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population of the Republic of Azerbaijan (MLSPP) and its Medical and Social Expert Commission (MSEC) to digitally store the information of the  disability evaluation, which, in conjunction with other information connected by extensive integration with different programmes and centralized information systems, provided the basis for decision making throughout the programme. The functionalities include the creation of personalized rehabilitation plans, the management of the history of services and rehabilitation equipment delivered to the beneficiaries, improved reporting capabilities and the possibility for people with disabilities to apply for benefits and services. All these characteristics are supported by a data integration scheme covering different information systems and registers inside and outside of the MLSPP, as well as those at the rehabilitation institutions.

The improvements in reporting capabilities, information security, transparency, accessibility, and control of effectiveness of the services offered under the umbrella of the Individual Rehabilitation Program have represented a more tailored approach for people with disabilities in Azerbaijan.

HELP! The coordinated social security offer to support self-employed workers in difficulty, France

This innovative initiative (URSSAF National Fund, 2024) led by an alliance of social security institutions in France, understood that information “signals” identified by one institution could be a good predictor to triggering the intervention of another institution to help self-employed workers by using social security instruments. During the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the initiative was developed to offer self-employed workers in economic difficulty the ability to access a benefit through the various specialized social security institutions within a single contact point. This coordination consisted of establishing operational procedures across organizations and allowed the institutions involved to better support employment transitions. The key enabler was a data sharing and exchange ecosystem that reduced the complexity to apply and provided advice to beneficiaries applying for benefits. Previously this had to be done separately at each one of the institutions.

The diagnosis of a specific situation was orchestrated by a single pre-orientation questionnaire hosted in the public French web site: demarches-simplifiees.fr. The 10 questions were designed to empower an officer from any of the partner institutions to quickly obtain information to diagnose the situation of the vulnerable, and collect the required information to trigger a coordinated social security response. The information collected in the process is shared among all the institutions, including the URSSAF National Fund (URSSAF Caisse nationale), Caisses primaires d’assurance maladie (CPAM), Caisses d’allocations familiales (CAF) and Caisses d’Assurance Retraite et de Santé Au Travail (CARSAT).

The HELP initiative demonstrates how high levels of coordination could be achieved even with a low level of data exchange and data sharing implementations. The development and nurturing of an interinstitutional dynamic collaborative network, at national and local levels represents a powerful capability for future initiatives to continue increasing coordination among participating institutions.

Digital Pension Overview, Germany

The Digital Pension Overview initiative was established by the German Federal Pension Insurance (Deutsche Rentenversicherung Bund – DRV Bund) (ISSA, 2023) through an intensive coordination effort and a collaborative approach with different public and nongovernmental organizations. The solution allowed pension contributors in Germany access to a new tool, which helps them make better decisions in terms of the benefits they will receive from their future pensions. This supports beneficiaries in their transition to retirement through a data exchange and sharing mechanism established under the supervision of an advisory multistakeholder board (German Federal Pension Insurance, 2024).

The solution resulted in a web portal that offers in “a few clicks a clear and structured overview of all pension entitlements” (German Federal Pension Insurance, 2024). The portal is supported by an information system connecting different data sources that relies on “an industry-wide communication standard… that is accepted and used by all pension schemes” (German Federal Pension Insurance, 2024) The data exchange and sharing mechanism allows DRV Bund to offer the citizens the information on their legal, enterprise and private pension schemes in a secure, reliable, understandable, easy to use, barrier free and as comparable as is possible (German Federal Pension Insurance, 2023).

Using agile methods of software development was used to navigate complex interinstitutional coordination. The flexibility and adaptability of agile methods to iteratively construct a scope for the initiative, as well as the focus on creating a customer centric usable solution, were key elements in the success of this effort.

Single person´s benefit, Lithuania

The State Social Insurance Fund Board (SODRA) under the Ministry of Social Security and Labour (MSSL) developed and implemented a new initiative called “single person´s benefit”. This allowed more citizens in Lithuania to receive a cash transfer benefit without the need for them to ask for it. The single person´s benefit was intended to increase adequacy of benefits on top of other previously granted social security instruments like “old-age, invalidity or disability pensions or allowances” (State Social Insurance Fund Board of the Republic of Lithuania under the Ministry of Social Security and Labour, 2024) which had not managed to have the originally expected coverage.

To tackle this challenge, SODRA designed a plan for the delivery of the benefit, that started in 2020, with a proposal to the Lithuanian legislators to pass a law enabling and organizing the payment of the “single person´s benefit” using known data from existing registries. The implementation required a strong focus on data integration and data quality with a specific challenge on agile software development due to the shortness of the available time for the implementation, which was only four months.

Streamlining the process included an automatic enrolling mechanism to break down barriers to access, especially for the elderly, the people with lack of digital literacy and people with disabilities.

IT development of the Statute of the Cultural Professional, Portugal

Persons belonging to the cultural sector in Portugal were entitled by law to a new social security benefit. This new Statute for Cultural Professionals launched an initiative by the Informatics Institute (Instituto de Informática) in alliance with the Social Security Institute (Instituto da Segurança Social). They had the responsibility to provide the information technology support required (Social Security Institute, 2024) for this initiative that allows hard-to-reach workers to transition to formality, including them in the social security system in Portugal by integrating different data sources to establish a new contribution process.

The initiative was highly complex from the conceptual and technical perspectives, and the key success factors consisted of: the institutional communication framework, the software development framework, a close commitment of senior officers and a carefully crafted project´s scope breakdown of seven different information systems. The solution established three entirely new electronic receipts and invoices (RFE) systems and four new integrated systems, such as an integrated current account (SICC) system.

The integration of the required data helped calculate the contributions to be paid by the different individuals, and coordinate the flow of data about the contributions collected between different stakeholders.

“Dopflux”, Belgium

National Employment Office (Office national de l’emploi – ONEM) from Belgium introduced “Dopflux” which uses data exchange, leveraging electronic data streams from various organizations to enrich its datasets. By combining detailed information on work, death and retirement with electronical data streams (“flux”), Dopflux creates a comprehensive repository of socio-economic data. This approach facilitates granular data collection, capturing intricate details of individual’' labour market experiences, such as working days and contract types. In addition, Dopflux emphasizes semi-structured, readily exploitable data stored in a format conducive to real‑time analysis, streamlining the analytical process and ensuring the immediate usability of exchanged data. This data exchange and integration project helps ONEM provide significantly better support for individual employment transitions which would not have been possible leveraging just their own data.

Central to Dopflux's data ecosystem is the utilization of longitudinal data, made possible through ongoing data exchanges. By tracking individuals' socio-economic transitions over time, Dopflux enables a deeper understanding of complex labour market dynamics and their implications for social security programmes. Furthermore, Dopflux optimizes resource allocation and minimizes costs by eliminating the need for repeated data requests through continuous data exchanges. This cost-effective approach not only enhances accessibility to data but also fosters collaboration between organizations, promoting efficient data-driven decision-making across sectors.

Despite its benefits, the use of data exchange in Dopflux presents challenges, such as ensuring privacy protection and maintaining data comparability. However, Dopflux addresses these concerns by acting as an independent intermediary for data flows, promoting privacy protection and data security. Furthermore, Dopflux facilitates statistical analysis by integrating exchanged data, enabling organizations to generate actionable insights while ensuring data integrity and comparability. Through robust data exchange mechanisms and adherence to stringent privacy protocols, Dopflux demonstrates how effective collaboration and data exchange can drive innovation and improve decision-making in socio-economic contexts.

Summary of the highlighted data exchange initiatives in Europe

Table 1 presents the results achieved by these organizations while implementing data exchange initiatives.

The different experiences show how leveraging data exchange and integration was used on various applications and supported front office applications, improving internal processes and integrating data sources in the back end to better understand actual and potential beneficiaries. The following diagram provides a visual representation of how the institutions mentioned have leveraged different data exchange and sharing strategies. It shows the diversity of advantages from the approaches to data exchange and how they have brought value to the organizations and their beneficiaries. While some have had greater emphasis on front facing services to the population, the importance on integrating data sources and streamlining and improving processes cannot be understated.

Final remarks

Exchange of data can help institutions and social security clients in different ways,  that include: having a “no wrong door” policy (URSAAF National Fund, France), generating value added services (DOST, Azerbaijan) and streamlining services by integrating with non-governmental partners of information (DRV Bund, Germany; DÖS, Austria).

These and other experiences on data exchange in the region analysed in this article highlight the importance of  data sharing and exchange for social security institutions to provide integrated and coordinated support to their members and the population. These examples show the relevance of interinstitutional cooperation and how a framework can act as an enabling environment for institutions to exchange data (Portugal) and engage in efforts to innovate on the ways to leverage data to improve social outcome.

A nurturing interinstitutional collaborative network is needed by institutions aspiring to a high level of data exchange and sharing (DÖS Austria; DRV Bund, Germany; URSAAF National Fund, France). Initiatives grounded on legislation explicitly requiring different stakeholders to collaborate can also help improve outcomes (DOST, Azerbaijan, SODRA, Lithuania; Institute of Informatics, Portugal). It is therefore important that institutions commit not only to the resources needed to actively engage between institutions to create win-win scenarios, but also between different stakeholders to achieve economies of scale with other institutions. The permanent need to manage risks related to information privacy and security is also a key aspect that requires specific attention. In many cases the implementation of data exchange mechanisms takes time, and institutions should take step-by-step approaches to continuously integrate stakeholders (DOST Azerbaijan, FSI Austria, URSAAF France).

Finally, it is important to underscore the importance of leveraging and building standardized data exchange mechanisms which significantly contribute to the ecosystem of digital public goods (Digital Public Goods Alliance, 2021). Building solutions on top of previously established ecosystems of public value (ONEM, Belgium; DÖS, Austria, DOST Azerbaijan; URSAAF National Fund, France) can eventually establish a more integrated approach to social security services and benefits, and help break silos of data that often exist between institutions.

Ultimately, inter-institutional collaborative approaches enabled by data exchange and sharing mechanisms are key to help organizations provide coordinated responses and tailored support to individuals during life events and transitions. This in turn increases the effectiveness of social security benefits and services and leads to better outcomes for individuals across their life-course.

References