Toward a fully de-identified biomedical information warehouse

The Information Warehouse at the Ohio State University Medical Center is a comprehensive repository of business, clinical, and research data from various source systems. Data collected here is a valuable resource that facilitates both translational research and personalized healthcare. The use of such data in research is governed by federal privacy regulations with oversight by the Institutional Review Board. In 2006, the Information Warehouse was recognized by the OSU IRB as an "Honest Broker" of clinical data, providing investigators with de-identified or limited datasets under stipulations contained in a signed data use agreement. In order to streamline this process even further, the Information Warehouse is developing a de-identified data warehouse that is suitable for direct user access through a controlled query tool that is aimed to support both research and education activities. In this paper we report our findings on performance evaluation of different de-identification schemes that may be used to ensure regulatory compliance while also facilitating practical database updating and querying. We also discuss how date-shifting in the de-identification process can impact other data elements such as diagnosis and procedure codes and consider a possible solution to those problems.