Boyle Douglas Iain Ross, Rafael Naomi
University of Melbourne Rural Health Academic Centre, Shepparton, VIC.
Stud Health Technol Inform. 2011;168:24-34.
BioGrid Australia provide infrastructure for research currently spanning 16 hospital-based clinical institutions and 50 databases across Victoria, Australia. To-date BioGrid have utilised a probabilistic record linkage engine (Sun Oracle Java CAPS eIndex) that utilises patient identifiers (albeit in a secure manner) during record linkage. BioGrid are now incorporating privacy-protecting record linkage technology from the University of Melbourne Rural Health Academic Centre (GRHANITE™). For the first time in Australia, the GRHANITE™technology is allowing primary care data linkage projects to happen on a large scale (70 sites, 200 planned to date). By utilising GRHANITE™privacy-protecting record linkage technologies, BioGrid are now able to overcome the privacy issues inherent in linking data across national jurisdictional boundaries. By utilising GRHANITE™privacy-protecting record linkage technologies all inter-jurisdictional public health and hospital clinical data collected by BioGrid can be systematically linked to primary care data for research for the first time. This paper describes the architecture of the combined BioGrid and GRHANITE™systems, provides evidence of the efficacy of the linkage technologies and heralds the start of a new era in privacy-protected, record linked research in Australia.
澳大利亚生物网格为目前跨越澳大利亚维多利亚州16家医院临床机构和50个数据库的研究提供基础设施。到目前为止，生物网格使用了一种概率性记录链接引擎（Sun Oracle Java CAPS eIndex），该引擎在记录链接过程中使用患者标识符（尽管是以安全的方式）。生物网格现在正在纳入墨尔本大学农村卫生学术中心的隐私保护记录链接技术（GRHANITE™）。在澳大利亚，GRHANITE™技术首次使初级保健数据链接项目能够大规模开展（目前有70个站点，计划达到200个）。通过使用GRHANITE™隐私保护记录链接技术，生物网格现在能够克服跨国家管辖边界链接数据时固有的隐私问题。通过使用GRHANITE™隐私保护记录链接技术，生物网格收集的所有跨管辖公共卫生和医院临床数据首次能够系统地与初级保健数据链接用于研究。本文描述了生物网格和GRHANITE™组合系统的架构，提供了链接技术有效性的证据，并预示着澳大利亚隐私保护、记录链接研究新时代的开始。
