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It seems the UK have created a “Trusted Research Environment” for working with the extremely privacy-sensitive datasets around NHS users’ health data, using OpenSAFELY; it is basically a hosting environment allowing the execution of user-submitted Python query code, which must be open source, hosted on Github, designed with care to avoid releasing user-identifying sensitive data, and of course fully auditable. This looks like a decent advance in privacy-sensitive technology! Example code, from the OpenSAFELY tutorial docs: “` from ehrql import create_dataset from ehrql.tables.core import patients, medications dataset = create_dataset() dataset.define_population(patients.date_of_birth.is_on_or_before(“1999-12-31”)) asthma_codes = [“39113311000001107”, “39113611000001102”] latest_asthma_med = ( medications.where(medications.dmd_code.is_in(asthma_codes)) .sort_by(medications.date) .last_for_patient() ) dataset.asthma_med_date = latest_asthma_med.date dataset.asthma_med_code = latest_asthma_med.dmd_code “`
(tags: privacy data-protection nhs medical-records medicine research python sql opensafely uk)