The Minister for Health and Children is expected to announce a major funding drive for the treatment of heart patients later today.
Mr Martin will make the announcement at the Cardiology Audit and Registration Data Standards (CARDS) conference in University College Cork.
Delegates from all EU members-states are attending the meeting, which was opened yesterday by Mr Martin.
He said: "In health, a key area of commonality is cardiovascular disease - Europe's biggest killer and largest cause of illness. The EU is facing a huge forthcoming burden, due to a range of factors and influences across the different member-states."
The Minister said CARDS was an important step in ensuring that patients across the EU experienced the same level in treatment of heart conditions. "While existing cardiology databases share similar aims, there is no European agreement on which variables to collect in specific service locations and no agreed definitions for most of the data fields.
"As a consequence, the important benefits of collation and comparison of data from different sources are lost. This CARDS conference sets out to agree European data standards, to provide a basis for the collection of comparable data in cardiology databases and registries.
"The data standards developed by the CARDS project will facilitate the evaluation of clinical guidelines and risk management protocols for acute coronary syndromes," he added.
The Minister said the European Society of Cardiology will act as steward of the CARDS initiative, encouraging implementation of the standards by the relevant parties.