Increasing concern for individuals' privacy and confidentiality coupled with a growing body of legislation and codes of practice governing the use of personal and health data means that sharing health data for research purposes, particularly across health data custodian boundaries, poses technical, organisational and ethical challenges.
Protecting the privacy of health information is an integral component of the research conducted by the Australian e-Health Research Centre. Aspects of this research involve human participants, with the consequence that approval is required from various Research Ethics Committees. The Australian e-Health Research Centre has expertise in ethics submission processes and similar regulatory requirements (for example, notifications to the Therapeutic Goods Administration).
Requirements for the management of health information are specific to the agencies interfacing with the work of the Australian e-Health Research Centre. This includes Commonwealth agencies, private sector healthcare providers and Queensland Health. The staff of the Australian e-Health Research Centre are aware of the sensitive nature of health information and are bound by the relevant privacy provisions in their undertakings.