Minister for Health enables secure access to COVID-19 Data Research Hub
Today, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly TD, has launched an initiative to facilitate safe and secure access to COVID-19 data for valid health research purposes.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has been maintaining a COVID-19 Data Research Hub since April 2020. To date this data has been used solely by a sub-group of the National Public Health Emergency Team to conduct statistical analysis on healthcare data.
Now, in partnership with the CSO and the Health Research Board (HRB), an application process has been put in place to enable registered researchers to apply to access the data for research purposes. A series of safeguards have been put in place to protect patient privacy under stringent and transparent rules while advancing our understanding of COVID-19 for the benefit of people’s health, patient care as well as health care policy and planning. Following a rigorous approval p
Minister for Health amends Health Research Regulations on personal information
The Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD, today made significant amendments to the Health Research Regulation 2018. Those Regulations provide the legal framework that governs the collection, use and sharing of an individual’s personal information for health research purposes.
The amendments deal with the following main areas: pre-screening to establish suitability or eligibility for inclusion in health research; carrying out low risk retrospective chart reviews; deferred consent in exceptional medical situations and new rules on consent generally.
The Minister said: Ultimately, the success of health research in Ireland as in any country is dependent upon public support for research. Any person using our health services rightly feels that his or her medical information is respected and safeguarded. That is why the purpose of the amendments is to facilitate health research and