MEDIATED DATA ENCRYPTION FOR LONGITUDINAL PATIENT LEVEL DATABASES

摘要

A system and method for the assembly of a longitudinally linked database of patient healthcare data records involve a neutral implementation partner to ensure that sensitive patient-identifying information contained in the data records is secure at all times. The implementation partner is deployed to mediate processing of the data records in a secure environment, which is inaccessible to unauthorized parties including data supplier and database facility personnel. At data supplier sites, the implementation partner mediates processing of the data records so that the patient-identifying attributes in the data records are encrypted before they are transmitted to a common longitudinal database facility. At the common longitudinal database facility, the implementation partner mediates processing of the data records so that internal tags are assigned to data records based on the values of the encrypted patient-identifying attributes. The internal tags are used to longitudinally link the encrypted data records in a statistically meaningful manner. The implementation partner may be any combination of software, hardware and organizational entities.