Eligibility requirements for requesting data depend on the nature of the request.

Research

To be eligible for review, research requests must:

• have approval from a recognized Research Ethics Board
• be for the time-limited purpose of addressing a specific set of research questions
• be in the public interest (for example, improving the welfare of the population)
• have scientific merit

Please note that these criteria alone do not guarantee approval of the research request.

Quality improvement

Quality Improvement (QI) requests are made by healthcare professionals and operational leaders (see definition of operational leaders) for data that help them improve or manage internal processes, practices, costs or productivity.

To be eligible for review, QI requests must:

• be made as part of your job function
• affirm that there is no intent to publish the data or results

If these criteria are not met, your project would be reviewed using the criteria for research.

Other

Requests can be made for aggregated data to support a wide range of needs, such as for grant application development, policy development and program evaluation.

BC Children's Hospital & BC Women's Hospital + Health Centre (C&W) accepts data access requests from PHSA researchers and staff, as well as from non PHSA-affiliated applicants.

Your institutional affiliation and location will determine whether your data request is considered an internal or external request. This will affect how your application is processed and what requirements you must meet.

Internal requesters

If you are affiliated with PHSA and will be conducting the project at a PHSA location, your application is considered an internal request. For research projects, research ethics approval will also come from a PHSA-affiliated Research Ethics Board.

Internal requesters must follow all PHSA policies related to their data request.

External requesters

If you are not affiliated with PHSA, your application is considered an external request. Once C&W receives your Data Access Request, we will determine what type of documentation you need to provide.

If you work at another health authority or with the Ministry of Health, an Information Sharing Plan will be required (see definition of Information Sharing Plan).

If you work for any other external organization, an Information Sharing Agreement will be required (see definition of Information Sharing Agreement).

External requesters are required to follow all PHSA policies related to privacy and confidentiality and to be compliant with any other requirements as outlined by the Information Sharing Agreement.

Research trainees and students

C&W services are available to research trainees and medical students conducting a project as part of their practicum, thesis or residency. The principal investigator (PI) or supervisor is required to sign off on the Data Access Agreement to confirm the scientific merit of the data request (see definition of Data Access Agreement).