Mr. Dr. Karanikas Haralambos is Assistant Professor of Medical Informatics and eHealth Systems at the Department of Computer Science and Biomedical Informatics, University of Thessaly. He holds a BSc in Physics from the School of Sciences of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, an MSc in Computer Science from UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology), Manchester, UK, and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Manchester.

He has more than fifteen years of professional experience in the design and implementation of projects in Greece and internationally. In the field of eHealth specifically, he has over eleven years of documented experience, with particular expertise in the use, analysis, and implementation of international interoperability standards, profiles, and terminologies, including HL7 standards, IHE integration profiles, and LOINC terminology. His work encompasses the design and implementation of health information systems enabling the exchange of clinical and medical information, addressing both the technical and semantic dimensions of interoperability.

Professor Karanikas has served as a Special Advisor on eHealth to the Greek Ministry of Health and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Health Procurement Committee (EPY). He has also been an active member of the National Committee for the implementation of prescribing protocols and of the Coordinating Group for the Oversight of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) supporting the strengthening of Primary Health Care services under the auspices of the Ministry of Health. In parallel, he has contributed to the development of prescribing protocols integrated into Greece’s national electronic prescribing system.

He is Secretary General of the Hellenic Society of eHealth Services and Education (EEMEPY) and serves as an eHealth Advisor to the Athens Medical Society. He has represented Greece and contributed to several major European initiatives in digital health and health data interoperability, including the PARENT Joint Action (Cross-border PAtient REgistries iNiTiative) and EUnetHTA Joint Action 3 (JA3) in the field of Health Technology Assessment.

More recently, he has contributed to Xt-EHR (Extended EHR@EU Data Space for Primary Use), supporting the development and implementation of interoperability requirements and specifications for Electronic Health Record systems in the context of the European Health Data Space, as well as to i2X (Intelligent Implementations of the European Electronic Health Record Exchange Format – EEHRxF), which supports the implementation and real-world adoption of interoperable health data exchange under the European Health Data Space (EHDS) framework.