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Data release and confidentiality
The Department’s policy on releasing data aims to protect the privacy of individuals, small community groups and private hospitals. All data to be released is based on de-identified patient level data.
The process used by the Department in assessing requests for use and disclosure of data from the Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset (VAED), Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset (VEMD) and Elective Surgery Information System (ESIS) collections is summarised as follows:
- The Department needs to be satisfied that the data items requested minimise the risk of patient identification and that they are appropriate to the proposed use of the data.
- If the data is to be used for a research project, unless the risk of identification is negligible, the project must be approved by a properly constituted Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC). For a list of ‘properly constituted’ Victorian HRECs see Applying to other HRECs
- The data recipient must accept the Department’s standard Conditions of release. Note that this is only supplied once an application has been received and assessed by the HOSdata front desk. See How to request data
Related information
See also the Department's Privacy Policy.
