The European Institute for Innovation through Health Data (i~HD) has been formed as one of the sustainable entities arising from the Electronic Health Records for Clinical Research (EHR4CR) and SemanticHealthNet projects, in collaboration with other European Commission projects and initiatives. The vision of i~HD is to become the European organisation of reference for guiding and catalysing the best, most efficient and trustworthy uses of health data and interoperability, for optimizing health and knowledge discovery.i~HD has been established in recognition that there is a need to tackle areas of challenge in the successful scaling up of innovations that rely on high-quality and interoperable health data, to sustain and propagate the results of eHealth research, and to address current-day obstacles to using health data. i~HD was launched at an inaugural conference in Paris, in March 2016. This was attended by over 200 European clinicians, healthcare providers and researchers, representatives of the pharma industry, patient associations, health professional associations, the health ICT industry and standards bodies. The event showcased issues and approaches, that are presented in this paper to highlight the activities that i~HD intends to pursue as enablers of the better uses of health data, for care and research.