AI4Health.Cro has been featured in the latest AI-on-Demand Platform newsletter, highlighting how European Digital Innovation Hubs can help hospitals, SMEs, startups, researchers and public institutions move from early AI ideas to tested, scalable solutions.
For many organisations working with artificial intelligence in healthcare, the question is no longer whether AI has potential. The harder question is how to test it safely, access the right data, navigate regulation and connect with the infrastructure needed to bring digital health solutions closer to real-world use.
That was the focus of the latest AI-on-Demand Platform newsletter, which featured an interview with Dr Anja Barešić, coordinator of AI4Health.Cro.
The interview places AI4Health.Cro within a growing European effort to reduce fragmentation and make AI tools, expertise, testing environments and funding opportunities easier to access across borders.
Dr Barešić said that European Digital Innovation Hubs were designed as one-stop shops for SMEs and public sector organisations working on digital transformation and new digital products. In that context, she described the emergence of the AI-on-Demand Platform as a welcome step for EDIHs and their users, particularly because of its role in connecting organisations with open calls, EuroHPC-related opportunities and wider European AI resources.
One of the most important points raised in the interview was the challenge of data access in healthcare. High-quality AI development depends on sufficient, diverse and machine-readable data, but healthcare data is often difficult to access, fragmented and complex to prepare for responsible use.
According to Dr Barešić, this is precisely where AI4Health.Cro has positioned itself strongly: as the only EDIH in Croatia and the region with structured processes for accessing medical data. She also highlighted the role of AI4Health.Cro datathon competitions show future users why secure data environments, or sandboxes, are essential for developing reliable and trustworthy AI models.
This focus is particularly relevant for startups, SMEs and research teams working in digital health. For them, access to data is often one of the biggest barriers between a promising idea and a solution that can be validated in real conditions.
AI4Health.Cro supports this transition through services including training, testing, access to expertise, support in finding funding, networking and “Test Before Invest” opportunities. The aim is to help organisations understand not only whether their solution works technically, but whether it can meet the practical, regulatory and clinical expectations of the healthcare sector.
The interview also points to the next stage of AI4Health.Cro’s development. The current project phase runs until 30 September 2026, while funding has already been secured for an additional three years through the EDIH 2.0 programme, starting from 1 October 2026.
Dr Barešić said that in its first phase AI4Health.Cro successfully built brand recognition and established services such as training, testing, support in accessing funding and networking for a wide range of SME users. These services will remain 100% co-financed for selected participants and will continue to evolve in line with new trends in digital solution development.
In the next phase, AI4Health.Cro will place stronger emphasis on advisory support and access to centralised resources, including national and international data sources, EuroHPC, computing infrastructure, emerging AI factories outside Croatia and platforms such as AI-on-Demand.
The wider European context is also becoming more important. The AI-on-Demand Platform is working to connect regional innovation capacities with European-scale digital infrastructure. In practice, EDIHs act as regional entry points, while AIoD provides a wider layer for discovery, access and deployment of AI solutions.
For Croatia’s healthtech ecosystem, this creates a clearer pathway into European AI infrastructure. It gives SMEs, startups, hospitals, researchers and public sector stakeholders better access to expertise, funding opportunities, testing environments and cross-border collaboration.
The newsletter also highlights the current AIoD Open Call, offering up to €60,000 in funding for AI providers with market-ready solutions. Selected applicants can receive mentoring, visibility, integration into the AIoD Marketplace and opportunities to deploy their solutions with real industry partners. The application deadline is 8 June 2026 at 17:00 CEST.
For AI4Health.Cro users, the message is clear: AI adoption in healthcare is becoming less about isolated initiatives and more about connected pathways for testing, validation, funding and deployment.
For Croatia and the wider region, AI4Health.Cro is helping make that pathway more accessible. By linking local expertise with European infrastructure, the hub is supporting the development of trustworthy AI solutions that can respond to real healthcare challenges.
In that sense, the future of AI in healthcare will depend not only on better algorithms, but on better systems around them: secure data access, clinical validation, regulatory understanding, infrastructure, partnerships and trust. AI4Health.Cro is increasingly becoming one of the places where those pieces come together.
Source: AI on Demand Newsletter