DaSH is one of four regional safe havens in Scotland providing secure access to patient and population data where it is not practicable to obtain individual consent. DaSH is accredited by the Scottish Government and maintains ISO27001 certification for secure processing of and safe access to sensitive data, ensuring patient confidentiality and privacy whilst facilitating cutting-edge research.

DaSH maintains health records for the NHS Grampian Health Board, covering a population of 600,000 people, 89 GP practices and 17 community hospitals in Aberdeenshire and Moray in North East Scotland. DaSH will also expand to hold data from Highlands & Islands in the future. With the newly established Aberdeen Health Determinants Research Centre (AHDRC), DaSH has begun to hold Local Authority data for Aberdeen City.

Our team of data analysts, Information Governance and research coordination specialists and project managers support clinicians and researchers in providing research-ready datasets for analysis. We assist clinicians and researchers with project scoping, permissions applications, and the ingestion, extraction, processing and linkage of datasets. We have particular expertise in Open Research principles in secure research environments (in partnership with the Aberdeen Centre for Health Data Science and the Networked Data Lab), and AI modelling/training and image and free-text data processing (in partnership with iCAIRD).

Professor Shantini Paranjothy, Clinical Chair in Public Health at the University of Aberdeen, Consultant in Public Health for NHS Grampian and DaSH Clinical and Academic Lead, and Professor Corri Black, Co-Director of the Aberdeen Centre for Health Data Science at the University of Aberdeen, Consultant in Public Health for NHS Grampian, and DaSH Clinical and Academic Deputy Lead have jointly announced:

The Grampian Data Safe Haven is pleased to join the UK Health Data Research Alliance. We look to further expand and enable access to health and population data available to researchers via the DaSH trusted research environment. Joining the Alliance is an important forum for sharing resources and shaping the direction for future research across the UK.”

Datasets

DaSH currently hosts a number of health and population datasets covering the NHS Grampian Health Board, including hospital data, laboratory testing, prescribing, inpatient and outpatient health records, clinical free text (including radiology reports, GP Referrals, OP Clinic letters and Discharge letters), nationally maintained administrative datasets (e.g. births and deaths), and Covid-19 testing and shielding data. DaSH also maintains longitudinal population data held by the University of Aberdeen.

DaSH data uses in the Innovation Gateway

DaSH full dataset listing

Further Information

Visit: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/iahs/facilities/grampian-data-safe-haven.php

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