In collaboration with Data Partners, CO-CONNECT are researching a new capability to speed up the process where Data Partners generate a subset of data for research analysis by utilisation of a semi-automated method. This method helps Data Partners to create this subset of their data based on the cohort definition used with the Cohort Discovery Search Tool. For example, “A PCR test which was positive and were under the age of 40”.
The generated subsets of data from across different Data Partners that have given permission would be placed into what is called a Trusted Research Environment. Trusted Research Environments, also known as TREs, are secure IT systems that researchers can remotely connect to and ask research questions on pseudonymised data. The data cannot be copied or removed from the Trusted Research Environment and researchers can only export answers such as a graph.
The copying of a pseudonymous subset of data relevant to a specific research project into a single TRE only takes place once researchers have been granted permission by each Data Partner and all Data Partners agree which single TRE to utilise.