They were asked if they would be willing to let a researcher have access to their records for research purposes.
Additionally, data presented here was collected at a time when patients in the UK were not required to give consent for medical researchers to inspect their medical records for research purposes (i.e. to 'opt in' to this type of research).
Research use of these systems may also facilitate further development of electronic medical records for research and, potentially, for direct incorporation of research findings into clinical care.
Imposing data sufficiency requirements for subject selection allows researchers to minimize missing data when reusing electronic health records for research, but introduces a bias towards the selection of sicker patients.
There is, though, nothing new in using health records for research.
In over 20 years working in this area I am unaware of any privacy issue arising from the use of medical records for research.
Vanderbilt has developed a way of "scrubbing" all identifying information from a patient's records for research purposes using techniques originally developed by the CIA.
Access to the Anagrafe for research is strictly limited, since only municipalities are entitled to manage it: anonymous records for research sometimes can be obtained at the discretion of the public officers.
Motivated by recent calls to use electronic health records for research, we reviewed the application and development of methods for addressing the bias from unmeasured confounding in longitudinal data.
Patients, at initial consultation, routinely sign an informed consent, which allows members of the center to use their medical records for research purposes as long as their identity is protected and all medical information remains confidential.
Patients, at time of initial consultation, sign an informed consent, which permits such utilization of medical records for research purposes as long as the patients' identities remain undisclosed, medical records are untraceable and remain confidential.
