PA purchased the commercially available Hospital Episode Statistics data set from the NHS Information Centre (now the Health and Social Care Information Centre). The data set does not contain information linked to specific individuals. The information is held securely in the cloud in accordance with conditions specified and approved by HSCIC.
This new approach to analytics can help the NHS improve patient care. We have been able to identify where services are needed most and to understand previously unseen side effects of drugs and treatments. Our approach protects patient confidentiality and allows insights to be derived at significantly lower cost, and a hundred times faster, than any traditional approach.
HSCIC's statement:
The NHS Information Centre (NHS IC) signed an agreement to share pseudonymised Hospital Episodes Statistics data with PA Consulting in November 2011.
This included Hospital Episode Statistics on Admitted Patient Care (1999/00 to Provisional 2011/12), Outpatient (2003/4 to Provisional 2011/12) and A&E (2007/8 to Provisional 2011/12). This agreement lasted to November 2012 and was amended in December 2012 to extend to November 2015.
The agreement obliged PA Consulting to abide by conditions to protect the confidentiality of the data, including restricting the data to a named list of individuals, a prohibition on sharing any information with risk of identifying individuals and a requirement to destroy the data after the agreement end date.
PA Consulting used a product called Google BigQuery to manipulate the datasets provided and the NHS IC was aware of this. The NHS IC had written confirmation from PA Consulting prior to the agreement being signed that no Google staff would be able to access the data; access continued to be restricted to the individuals named in the data sharing agreement.
That said, I doubt that Google is doing it. More interesting is that this tech appeared two years ago, I thought the world would rush to pick it up and as far as I know no one has!
PA purchased the commercially available Hospital Episode Statistics data set from the NHS Information Centre (now the Health and Social Care Information Centre). The data set does not contain information linked to specific individuals. The information is held securely in the cloud in accordance with conditions specified and approved by HSCIC.
This new approach to analytics can help the NHS improve patient care. We have been able to identify where services are needed most and to understand previously unseen side effects of drugs and treatments. Our approach protects patient confidentiality and allows insights to be derived at significantly lower cost, and a hundred times faster, than any traditional approach.
HSCIC's statement:
The NHS Information Centre (NHS IC) signed an agreement to share pseudonymised Hospital Episodes Statistics data with PA Consulting in November 2011.
This included Hospital Episode Statistics on Admitted Patient Care (1999/00 to Provisional 2011/12), Outpatient (2003/4 to Provisional 2011/12) and A&E (2007/8 to Provisional 2011/12). This agreement lasted to November 2012 and was amended in December 2012 to extend to November 2015.
The agreement obliged PA Consulting to abide by conditions to protect the confidentiality of the data, including restricting the data to a named list of individuals, a prohibition on sharing any information with risk of identifying individuals and a requirement to destroy the data after the agreement end date.
PA Consulting used a product called Google BigQuery to manipulate the datasets provided and the NHS IC was aware of this. The NHS IC had written confirmation from PA Consulting prior to the agreement being signed that no Google staff would be able to access the data; access continued to be restricted to the individuals named in the data sharing agreement.
http://www.paconsulting.com/introducing-pas-media-site/relea...
http://www.hscic.gov.uk/article/3948/Statement-Use-of-data-b...