The health data space plays an important role in ensuring the efficient and compliant circulation of health data and releasing strategic resource value of health data .Taking the European Health Data Space (EHDS) as a case study, this article first deconstructs its operational mechanism from the perspectives of its element structure and key functional mechanisms. Secondly, it analyzes operational challenges from the perspectives of subjects, system, and technology, and proposes strategies to address them. Data sources, platforms, subjects, systems, and technologies are the five elements of EHDS operation. The elements interact and coordinate with each other to achieve efficient cross-border circulation and utilization of health data. The three key action mechanisms of EHDS operation are the adjustment of rights and responsibilities oriented toward subject trust, the guidance and norms oriented toward rule trust, and the internal and external guarantees oriented toward ecological trust. Building a data community of interests based on the concept of value co-creation, consolidating the institutional foundation that follows the principle of combining rigidity and flexibility, and creating an active ecosystem that responds to agile iteration needs constitute the solutions to uneven distribution of benefits, insufficient institutional vitality, and technical design shortcomings in EHDS. The construction of the EHDS has enlightenment significance for the development of China's Health Data Space.