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Nickel City researchers will soon have access to 13 million health records

HSN to house satellite office of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences
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Dr. Michael Conlon, site director for ICES North, speaks at a press conference at Health Sciences North on Nov. 17. (Arron Pickard)

Funding from all three levels of government will allow health care researchers in Greater Sudbury access to the 13 million patient records in Ontario so they can follow patterns of care and outcomes.

Having access to such highly classified information will not only allow researchers at Health Sciences North, Laurentian University and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine plan for better patient care and outcomes, but to attract and retain more top researches, said Dominic Giroux, President and CEO of Health Sciences North and its research institute.

On Nov. 17, federal, provincial and municipal governments invested a combined total of $563,424 to set up a satellite office of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) at HSN. This will be the sixth and final satellite office for ICES to be established. After it's up and running, there will be a satellite office at every academic health sciences centre across the province.

Both the provincial and federal governments have committed $221,712 to the project, while the City of Greater Sudbury has committed to $120,000 to support the initiative.

“Northern Ontario was the missing part of the provincial hub of research, and what this allows, in tangible terms, is our researchers here in Sudbury will have access to patient-level data, which is highly confidential information around patient outcomes,” said Giroux. “Such confidential data requires highly secured technology, equipment and facilities, so we'll be renovating about a 1,000 square feet of space at HSN to allow researchers to probe that data.”

Establishing that satellite office will bring Northern Ontario on par with the rest of the province in terms of research into patient care, he said.

“Now researchers across post-secondary education and in the health care sector will have access to data the same day as any other researcher in the province,” Giroux said. “It puts us in a different league, and will allow us to attract and retain even more top researchers, because they will have access to the same tools as if they were located in larger health care centres like Toronto or Ottawa.

“Health care is facing significant challenges, and we need the best information, the best knowledge possible. Our researchers, up until now, were kind of handcuffed because they didn't have that immediate access to patient-level data to conduct their research.”

Dr. Michael Conlon, site director for the satellite office, said it will become a home for people to access data and expertise to study local issues important to local researchers.

“We've been talking about trying to get access to this data for quite some time now, so it's nice to see that now is its time and that it's going to happen,” Conlon said.

Dr. Michael Schull, president and CEO, ICES, said it was always clear the ICES network would not be complete until it was present in the North.

“ICES North extends our capacity to generate high-quality, locally informed research,” Schull said in a press release. “By engaging with scientists and the breadth of expertise and local knowledge available in the North, our partnership will contribute to the effectiveness, quality, equity and efficiency of health care and health services for all people in the North and throughout Ontario.”

Over time, about a dozen new positions will be created through this initiative, Giroux said.


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Arron Pickard

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