Saskatchewan Health Data: Where you need it, when you need it!
A new secure virtual environment removes barriers to using Saskatchewan health data for research. The Secure Research Environment (SRE), available through the Health Research Data Platform – Saskatchewan (HRDP-SK), allows approved researchers to access Saskatchewan health data virtually, making it accessible from anywhere in the province or country.
The HRDP-SK makes linked health datasets from several Saskatchewan health organizations available from a single access point. With better access to health information, researchers can better understand key issues in Saskatchewan healthcare and guide system improvement. Prior to HRDP-SK, provincial health data could only be accessed onsite in Saskatoon, limiting who was able to conduct research. Researchers were constrained by location and business hours, making projects logistically challenging, especially those involving multi-jurisdictional or national work. These complexities led some researchers to bypass the individual-level data entirely, choosing instead to work with aggregated data; that is, averages or other statistical outputs collected by the data’s home institution. While valuable in some instances, aggregated data is often insufficient for testing hypotheses in health research.
With the SRE now available in the HRDP-SK, researchers have improved access to de-identified health data in Saskatchewan. Teams based outside of Saskatoon or from other provinces no longer require travel to access the data and can carry out work from any location, and at the hours convenient to them.
Data privacy controls are essential to the SRE. The HRDP-SK team and its users commit to strong privacy and confidentiality protections in their work. These protections help to ensure that the SRE is both secure and straightforward to use. Within the environment, researchers work with de-identified data to produce aggregated results on population averages and trends. For security, the SRE locks users’ devices so the internet is not accessible, files cannot be saved to the computer and only approved analytical software can be used.
Malori Keller, Director, HRDP-SK with the Saskatchewan Centre for Patient-Oriented Research, is excited about this move to a virtual environment. “The logistical challenges associated with requiring physical access to the data can significantly delay or even end a research project. A virtual environment provides freedom to the research team; time previously spent working out operational details can be better used analyzing the data and focusing on the research.”
The creation of the HRDP-SK and the SRE enables Saskatchewan researchers to use data to produce local solutions to local problems, which ensures care and service delivery can be informed by timely evidence. This ultimately means better care for people here in the province. Further, the HRDP-SK can help attract the top minds in healthcare—both clinicians and researchers—to our province.
Ease and flexibility in accessing individual-level data make the SRE a powerful tool for Saskatchewan health research. It provides the best of both worlds: data privacy and the opportunity for agile collaboration in one secure working environment. Researchers using the HRDP-SK are now able to work nimbly and obtain reliable results that can easily be translated to other knowledge users; the SRE provides timely generation of evidence to inform decision-making and best practices for a healthier Saskatchewan.
