Securing healthcare data while studying COVID-19

In this episode, we chat with the people in charge of the healthcare and sensitive data collected in what is amongst the world's largest COVID-19 studies to date.

The study known as the Corona Study, is lead by the Oslo University Hospital and aims to examine how the coronavirus spreads in Norway. At the time this episode was recorded the study had been available for 19 days and more than 122 000 people had already answered the questionnaire. 

Dr. Gard Thomassen and Leon Charl du Toit work in an organisation called TSD at the University of Oslo. TSD (in Norwegian) is an abbreviation for "Service for sensitive data" and is a big data/ security platform that researchers use to carry out their studies. 

We talk about how the sensitive data collected is handled in terms of security, and how they were able to set up the infrastructure for the study in less than 24 hours. 

Technical level: 2/5

Show Notes:
https://tv.nrk.no/serie/nyheter/202004/NNFA41017520/avspiller (from minute 12:20)

https://www.uio.no/english/services/it/research/sensitive-data/ 

https://www.usit.uio.no/om/aktuelt/2020/koronastudien.html 

Host: Robby Peralta
Producer: Peter Harket