Emnet - Privacy Preserving Statistical Computations on Distributed Health Data

Description

In order to develop medical knowledge, it is absolutely necessary to use medical data in statistical analyses. In order to perform this type of analysis, data sets with data from many patients have traditionally been collected, processed, and then made available for statistics and analysis software. The development of distributed systems has now made it possible to perform these analyses without extracting and transferring medical data from the sphere of responsibility of the doctors performing the treatment. The doctors in charge thus maintain the control of medical data while the information is still available for statistical processing and knowledge production.

Within information security, trust is defined as an expectation of a particular behaviour. For medical professionals, the patient's expectation is that the duty of confidentiality will be observed. If the patient finds that this expectation is infringed, the expectation that health professionals will maintain confidentiality will also disappear. This undermines good cooperation between patient and health professionals.

Goals

Protect patients’ privacy while generating knowledge on the basis of medical data. The Emnet Project focuses on establishing methods for statistical processing of distributed medical data that protect privacy. We are working to deploy the Emnet tool for distributed analysis of health data in medical offices across Norway.

Method

Statistical analysis of medical data.