CSIRO Preventative Health Fellowship

[Print-friendly version]

Minimising Privacy and Security Risks with Health Data Linkages

The Fellowship:

Professor Peter Croll, from the Faculty of IT, has been awarded a Fellowship with CSIRO National Flagship on Preventative Health. This is one of a few highly competitive grants awarded nationally, supported by funding of $128K over a six month period. Prof Croll will be the third Fellow appointed since the Flagship's inception in April 2003. The Fellowship is funded through the Australian Government's $97 million Flagship Collaboration Fund for partnerships with universities which is a key element of the Australian Government's $5.3 billion science and innovation package, Backing Australia's Ability. Preventative Health incorporates over 100 researchers across 20 project teams.

The Project:

Prof Croll will be using his expertise in Safety-Critical systems and his knowledge of Electronic Health Information Systems to evaluate the ‘Privacy and Security risks with Health Data Linkages’ at the national level. CSIRO’s e-Health Research Centre in Brisbane is creating a powerful research tool for population health research and the tracking of the patient journey for improved patient treatment. Understanding of the risks of introducing new technology to include the legal framework, the managerial expectations and the issue of Trust in the health profession, particularly from the general public, is critical to Health Data Linkages’s success. Security and privacy are the top e-health issues causing concern to people, due to the sensitive nature of patient information and potential access to it by a wide range of staff. Prof Croll’s project aims to ensure that the ‘systems’ in place are appropriate to prevent trust of the data providers and data custodians from being readily or unintentionally eradicated.

The Outcomes:

Such a systems-wide assessment will include, in addition to technical risks, the administrative, legal and managerial risks. The planned outcome is to provide a model that facilitates ongoing risk assessment procedures that can be followed by the data custodians and other relevant stakeholders. In addition to reports and journal publications this information will be disseminated as widely as possible to appropriate personnel using specialized software and web-based tools.

Related Publications:

POSTER (1.95M) ABSTRACT (80k)- Sharing Health Data Privacy and Trust

HISA PRESENTATION (1M) - Minimizing Security and Privacy Risks when Integrating Critical Health Data

ACSHE KEYNOTE (66k) - From Mathematics to Management

Risks with Health Data Linkages (112k)