Building a Canadian Data Platform under the Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research

Background with rationaleThe diversity of Canada’s health systems and policies offers fertile ground for natural experiments, comparative analysis, and sharing of best practices. Investments over the last 25 years, measured in hundreds of millions of dollars, have created provincial centres with rich health and social data, national health surveys and more recently, clinical and other data. While much progress has been made within individual provinces and territories, challenges with comparability and timely access to data between jurisdictions remain.
 Main AimOur aim is to develop a distributed network that facilitates and accelerates multi-jurisdictional research.
 Methods/ApproachOur team includes data stewards, clinicians, decision-makers, patients, and researchers who are recognized as international leaders in data systems, access governance and engagement. The objectives for the Canadian Data Platform are to: create a data access support system that helps navigate multi-jurisdiction requests; to harmonize and validate definitions for important chronic diseases and other key variables to facilitate multi-jurisdictional research; to continue to expand the sources and