Digital records could expose intimate details and personality traits of millions

Research shows that intimate personal attributes can be predicted with high levels of accuracy from ‘traces’ left by seemingly innocuous digital behaviour, in this case Facebook Likes. Study raises important questions about personalised marketing and online privacy.

New research, published in the journal PNAS, shows that surprisingly accurate estimates of Facebook users’ race, age, IQ, sexuality, personality, substance use and political views can be inferred from automated analysis of only their Facebook Likes – information currently publicly available by default.

In the study, researchers describe Facebook Likes as a “generic class” of digital record – similar to web search queries and browsing histories – and suggest that such techniques could be used to extract sensitive information for almost anyone regularly online.

Researchers at Cambridge’s Psychometrics Centre, in collaboration with Microsoft Research Cambridge, analysed a dataset of over 58,000 US Facebook users, who volunteered their Likes, demographic profiles and psychometric testing results through the myPersonality application. Users opted in to provide data and gave consent to have profile information recorded for analysis.

Facebook Likes were fed into algorithms and corroborated with information from profiles and personality tests. Researchers created statistical models able to predict personal details using Facebook Likes alone.

Models proved 88% accurate for determining male sexuality, 95% accurate distinguishing African-American from Caucasian American and 85% accurate differentiating Republican from Democrat. Christians and Muslims were correctly classified in 82% of cases, and good prediction accuracy was achieved for relationship status and substance abuse – between 65 and 73%.

But few users clicked Likes explicitly revealing these attributes. For example, less that 5% of gay users clicked obvious Likes such as Gay Marriage. Accurate predictions relied on ‘inference’ – aggregating huge amounts of less informative but more popular Likes such as music and TV shows to produce incisive personal profiles.

Even seemingly opaque personal details such as whether users’ parents separated before the user reached the age of 21 were accurate to 60%, enough to make the information “worthwhile for advertisers”, suggest the researchers.

While they highlight the potential for personalised marketing to improve online services using predictive models, the researchers also warn of the threats posed to users’ privacy.

They argue that many online consumers might feel such levels of digital exposure exceed acceptable limits – as corporations, governments, and even individuals could use predictive software to accurately infer highly sensitive information from Facebook Likes and other digital ‘traces’.

The researchers also tested for personality traits including intelligence, emotional stability, openness and extraversion.

While such latent traits are far more difficult to gauge, the accuracy of the analysis was striking. Study of the openness trait – the spectrum of those who dislike change to those who welcome it – revealed that observation of Likes alone is roughly as informative as using an individual’s actual personality test score.

Some Likes had a strong but seemingly incongruous or random link with a personal attribute, such as Curly Fries with high IQ, or That Spider is More Scared Than U Are with non-smokers.

When taken as a whole, researchers believe that the varying estimations of personal attributes and personality traits gleaned from Facebook Like analysis alone can form surprisingly accurate personal portraits of potentially millions of users worldwide.

They say the results suggest a possible revolution in psychological assessment which – based on this research – could be carried out at an unprecedented scale without costly assessment centres and questionnaires.

“We believe that our results, while based on Facebook Likes, apply to a wider range of online behaviours.” said Michal Kosinski, Operations Director at the Psychometric Centre, who conducted the research with his Cambridge colleague David Stillwell and Thore Graepel from Microsoft Research.

“Similar predictions could be made from all manner of digital data, with this kind of secondary ‘inference’ made with remarkable accuracy – statistically predicting sensitive information people might not want revealed. Given the variety of digital traces people leave behind, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for individuals to control.

“I am a great fan and active user of new amazing technologies, including Facebook. I appreciate automated book recommendations, or Facebook selecting the most relevant stories for my newsfeed,” said Kosinski. “However, I can imagine situations in which the same data and technology is used to predict political views or sexual orientation, posing threats to freedom or even life.”

“Just the possibility of this happening could deter people from using digital technologies and diminish trust between individuals and institutions – hampering technological and economic progress. Users need to be provided with transparency and control over their information.”

Thore Graepel from Microsoft Research said he hoped the research would contribute to the on-going discussions about user privacy:

“Consumers rightly expect strong privacy protection to be built into the products and services they use and this research may well serve as a reminder for consumers to take a careful approach to sharing information online, utilising privacy controls and never sharing content with unfamiliar parties.”

David Stillwell from Cambridge University added: “I have used Facebook since 2005, and I will continue to do so. But I might be more careful to use the privacy settings that Facebook provides.”

Source: cam.ac.uk

Resource Management in Hospitals: Still a Largely Untapped Potential

9 – 11 April 2011, Berlin, Germany.
For years hospitals have been forced by cost-saving pressures to improve their internal processes to ensure they remain competitive. Not all options have been exploited yet. Multidimensional resource management can not only improve efficiency, but can also benefit the patient. At conhIT 2013 providers and users will be discussing the IT demands on modern hospital resource management as well as the obstacles that still stand in the way of solutions for the entire hospital sector.

A glance at the operating schedules is the easiest way to find out what modern hospital resource management can achieve. “A lot has been accomplished in recent years,” says Angelika Händel of Universitätsklinikum Erlangen. “In many hospitals nowadays, the employees involved can find out at any time about the operating schedule, operation details and when to bring in the next patient.” Even ordering operating materials and work schedules are unimaginable without using IT.

The fact that operating theatres are at the forefront of IT-assisted resource management hardly comes as a surprise: “An empty operating theatre costs several thousand euros every hour. At a time when economically speaking many hospitals are barely viable that is something they do not want to afford,” says Dr. Christoph Seidel, CIO, Klinikum Braunschweig. Together with Angelika Händel, a board member of Deutscher Verband Medizinischer Dokumentare (DVMD), Seidel, who is also director of the Competence Center for the Electronic Signature in Healthcare (CCESigG), will be chairing a Congress session on resource management at conhIT 2013.

Multidimensional resource management maximises benefits
Proper planning of resources has the potential to improve efficiency outside of the operating theatre as well. To date, however, hardly any steps have been taken in this direction. “Generally speaking, one can say that IT-assisted resource management works well in cases in which a hospital information system’s task is to assign a job, for example an X-ray examination.” Extra medical information is then provided for this job and combined with an order for transporting a patient. In many hospitals that is an efficient and automated process.

However, when the necessity arises to organise complex, IT-assisted planning processes many hospitals quickly reach their limits. “As soon as several planning factors have to be considered at the same time, which may also involve different departments, things become difficult. Most IT systems are incapable of handling such a multi-layered approach,” says Händel.

There are many examples that bear this out. At the top of the wishlist of many CIOs is a hospital-wide appointments management system. That would require drawing on data from completely different systems, inconceivable in a normal work situation, especially if the relevant systems are not from the same company. “HL7 represents an excellent communication standard for the hospital sector. What we do not have are cross-sectoral standards for resource management,” says Seidel.

Efficiency is in the patient’s interest too
The industry is aware of these deficits, as Andreas Kassner of the German Association of Healthcare IT Vendors (bvitg) points out: “The complex nature of day-to-day work in hospitals means that in many cases human beings still act as an interface. That is why there is definitely a need for standardisation. Hospitals should enter into a dialogue with manufacturers and offer concrete suggestions for improvements.”

What is clear is that efficient hospital resource management not only saves money but eases nerves as well. “Good resource planning should mean that patients do not have to wait all day for an operation or to stand around for ever in the emergency waiting room,” says Händel. A hospital might not be a car factory. “But with the help of IT and within certain limits it should be feasible to organise what would otherwise be impossible.”

More on this subject at conhIT 2013
On Thursday, 10 April 2013 at conhIT, experts taking part in the Congress Session no. 7 (Resource management) will be holding several lectures on their latest experiences of how hospitals work in practice. Resident practitioners and patients can also benefit from instruments that optimise day-to-day processes, for example online appointments systems. Also on 10 April 2013, the conhIT Forum “Focus on online services – from doctors for patients” will also be examining this topic. Anyone wishing to find out more ahead of conhIT about the products and services relevant to this subject can find the exhibitors in question in the conhIT Virtual Market Place and can already book an appointment at the Industrial Fair.

For further information, please visit:
http://www.conhit.de

About conhIT – Connecting Healthcare IT
conhIT targets decision-makers in IT departments, management, in the medical profession, nursing, doctors, doctors’ networks and medical care centres who need to find out about the latest developments in IT and healthcare, meet members of the industry and make use of opportunities for high-level advanced training. As an integrated event, over a period of three days conhIT combines an Industrial Fair, a Congress and Networking Events which are of particular interest to this sector. Launched in 2008 by the German Association of Healthcare IT Vendors (bvitg) as the meeting place for the healthcare IT industry and organised by Messe Berlin, this event recently recorded 270 exhibitors and 5,300 visitors and has now become Europe’s leading event for the healthcare IT sector.

conhIT 2013 is organised in cooperation with the following industry associations: the German Association of Healthcare IT Vendors (bvitg), the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (GMDS), the German Association of Medical Computer Scientists (BVMI). The National Association of Hospital IT Managers (KH-IT) and the Working Group of Directors of Medical Computing Centres at German University Clinics (ALKRZ) have provided contributions to the subject matter.

Source: conhIT Pressemitteilungen

Personal QR codes could help first responders get vital patient information

A first-responder team responds to a 911 call to find an unresponsive victim. They scan the QR code on the person’s phone or card and get information volunteered by the patient when they registered such as underlying conditions, medications he or she is taking and allergies. That was the winning idea for the second Startup Weekend Health held in Philadelphia.

The idea behind the QR code scan is that it would be a personalized system to reduce the risk of medical errors by avoiding medication or treatment that could conflict with medication the patient is taking, preexisting conditions or allergies. It would also simultaneously alert emergency contacts through a text message

The QR code is part of an enterprise solution that will be offered to health plans. David Bendell, the team leader of In Case of Emergency (mICE), pitched the idea Friday night. Forty-eight hours later, a seven-member team that included bioengineers, software developers, and a pharmacy and a nursing school student put the technology and business plan together, condensed the information into the kind of pitch that leaves listeners wondering how we’ve managed so long without it. The group also developed an app that allows users to send an SOS message to various contacts.

The team’s prize is securing an interview with DreamIt Health for its four-month accelerator to be housed at Venturef0rth, which hosted the Startup Weekend. Runners-up got an extension on the application deadline.

Bendell and lead developer Tanvir Aslam, both international students, said it could be a bittersweet victory if they can’t secure full-time jobs before their visas expire in May.

The concept of an emergency QR code for individuals is one that’s been evolving in the healthcare industry. Code Amber Alertag has a similar idea but markets directly to consumers. Lifesquare also has been developing a QR code system.

An idea for a radiology platform that provides a multilingual service for second opinions came in second. Radiologist Jose Morey’s US Med Experts is building a group of radiologists through medical societies like the American Board of Radiology to provide personalized interpretations of X-rays and scans. In a short demo, a radiologist discusses an X-ray, circling areas of concern and detailing his assessment.

Read more…

By Stephanie Baum

MSc in Global eHealth: Under Development

06/02/2013 - A new online programme in Global eHealth is currently being developed under the auspices of the Centre for Population Health Sciences (CPHS) and the Global Health Academy. This modular and interdisciplinary programme will allow students to acquire in depth knowledge of eHealth from an international perspective and with reference to issues for global development. Foundational courses will cover key concepts and methods in health informatics, global health challenges, eHealth policies and international health systems. These will be complemented by a programme of interdisciplinary options covering digital health innovations with reference to effectiveness, sociological and cultural aspects of implementation, ethical and governance issues and business processes. While evidence-based eHealth will be a pervasive theme through the programme, completion of the module in Research Methods for eHealth will be a core requirement for progression to the MSc project. The course is expected to appeal to clinicians, eHealth implementation personnel, allied health practitioners, NGOs, eHealth policymakers, innovators and technologists, and academic researchers. All modules will be credit bearing and may be used towards a certificate, diploma or masters qualification, depending on the duration of study (one, two or three years).

The announce reads,”We have set up a short survey and would be delighted to hear from anyone interested in online postgraduate study in Global eHealth. Your feedback will help shape the content and structure of this new programme, and there is an opportunity to leave your contact details so we can keep you up to date on any developments.”

For further information, please visit:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DQQH92L

About the Centre for Population Health Sciences
The Centre for Population Health Sciences (CPHS) draws on a long history of public health and general practice at the University of Edinburgh. The Centre brings together researchers with expertise in epidemiology, statistics and modelling, sociology, social policy, psychology, economics, geography, health promotion, nursing and medicine. Thus CPHS research projects can take advantage of a multi-disciplinary approach when needed, which is often the case in population health research. The mission of CPHS encompasses four inter-linked activities.

Source: ehealthserver.com

EMA publishes guidance on preparing and reviewing summaries of product characteristics

21/01/2013 - The European Medicines Agency has published guidance for pharmaceutical companies on how to prepare and review summaries of product characteristics (SmPCs) for human medicines. The guidance consists of a set of presentations detailing the information that should be included in each of the sections of the SmPC, together with background information on SmPCs both as a presentation and a video. Two videos explaining how to complete the SmPC sections on the therapeutic indication and pharmacodynamic properties of a medicine and on undesirable effects are also available.

The guidance, prepared by the Agency’s SmPC Advisory Group, outlines the principles in the European Commission’s guideline on SmPC. It is intended to enable companies to make sure that the information in SmPCs is of high quality when they submit them to the Agency as part of applications for new marketing authorisations or updates to existing marketing authorisations.

The background presentation and video also aim to raise awareness of the information provided in SmPCs among healthcare professionals.

SmPCs are a key part of the marketing authorisation of all medicines authorised in the European Union and the basis of information for healthcare professionals on how to use a medicine safely and effectively. They are kept updated throughout the lifecycle of a medicine as new efficacy or safety data emerge.

SmPCs are also the basis for the preparation of package leaflets, so are important documents in enabling information on medicines to reach patients.

Source: EMA News

Telehealth to Reach 1.8 Million Patients by 2017

Monday, 28 January 2013 - In 2012 there was estimated to be 308,000 patients remotely monitored by their healthcare provider for congestive heart failure (CHF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, hypertension and mental health conditions worldwide. The majority of these were post-acute patients who have been hospitalised and discharged. As healthcare providers seek to reduce readmission rates and track disease progression, telehealth is projected to reach 1.8 million patients worldwide by 2017, according to The World Market for Telehealth – An Analysis of Demand Dynamics – 2012, a new report from InMedica, part of IHS (NYSE: IHS).

In addition to post-acute patients, telehealth is also used to monitor ambulatory patients – those who have been diagnosed with a disease at an ambulatory care facility but have not been hospitalised. However, telehealth has a much larger penetration in post-acute care as compared to ambulatory care patients as the majority of patients are only considered for home monitoring following hospital discharge to prevent readmission. In the U.S., for example, 140,000 post-acute patients were estimated to have been monitored by telehealth in 2012, as compared to 80,000 ambulatory patients.

“A major challenge for telehealth, is for it to reach the wider population of ambulatory care patients. However, the clinical and economic outcomes for telehealth are more established for post-acute care patients. Indeed, even for post-acute care patients, telehealth is usually prescribed only in the most severe cases, and where patients have been hospitalised more than once in a year,” commented Theo Ahadome, senior analyst at InMedica.

CHF currently accounts for the majority of telehealth patients; in addition to being one of the largest cost-burdens for hospitalisation, the clinical outcomes of telehealth for CHF patients are most established. The number of telehealth patients with COPD is also projected to grow strongly as telehealth focus continues to expand to respiratory diseases. The successful results of the Whole System Demonstrator (WSD) program in the U.K. are serving as strong evidence-base for the benefits of telehealth for COPD patients. However, by 2017, Diabetes is forecast to account for the second largest share of telehealth patients, overtaking COPD. Home monitoring of glucose levels for diabetes patients is more established through personal glucose monitors. There is an increasing drive to integrate these monitors with telehealth systems, allowing care givers access to patient glucose data.

Over the next five years, InMedica identifies four main drivers of telehealth demand:

• Federal-driven demand: Readmission penalties introduced by the U.S. Centre for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are driving providers to adopt telehealth as a means of reducing readmission penalties. Faced with increasing healthcare expenditure, other governments, including the U.K., France and China are also promoting telehealth as a long-term cost-saving measure.
• Provider-driven demand: Healthcare providers want to use telehealth to increase ties to patients and improve quality of care. In many cases this is being done irrespective of the lack of a clear financial return on investment.
• Payer-driven demand: Telehealth is also being increasingly used by insurance providers to increase their competitiveness and reduce in-patient pay-outs, by working directly with telehealth suppliers to monitor their patient base.
• Patient-driven demand: There is currently very little demand from patients actively seeking out and requesting telehealth services from their payer or provider. Patient-driven demand is mostly limited to rural/non-metropolitan areas where there is a poor availability of clinics and physicians. As fitness awareness increases and consumers adopt personal devices to track their fitness, they will also increasingly seek professional devices to remotely track disease state.

About IHS
IHS (NYSE: IHS) is the leading source of information, insight and analytics in critical areas that shape today’s business landscape. Businesses and governments in more than 165 countries around the globe rely on the comprehensive content, expert independent analysis and flexible delivery methods of IHS to make high-impact decisions and develop strategies with speed and confidence. IHS has been in business since 1959 and became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange in 2005. Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, USA, IHS is committed to long-term, sustainable growth and employs more than 6,000 people in 31 countries around the world.

About InMedica
InMedica is the medical technology research division of IMS Research, the leading provider of market research and consultancy to the global electronics industry. InMedica publish high quality, in-depth market research on key medical markets including Medical Imaging (such as ultrasound and x-ray equipment), Clinical Care Devices (such as patient monitors and infusion pumps), Consumer Medical Devices (such as blood-pressure monitors and heart-rate monitors), Healthcare IT (such as PACS and EMR) and Telehealth. We offer our clients global coverage of the medical electronics industry, as well as dedicated reports on high growth regions, such as China, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

About IMS Research
IMS Research, recently acquired by IHS (NYSE: IHS), is a leading supplier of market research and consultancy to over 2500 clients worldwide, including most of the world’s largest technology companies. Established in the UK in 1989, IMS Research now has dedicated analyst teams focused on the factory automation, automotive, communications, computer, consumer, display, financial & ID, LED & lighting, medical, power & energy, solar PV, smart grid and security markets. Currently publishing over 350 different syndicated report titles each year, these in-depth publications are used by major electronics and industrial companies to assess market trends, solve marketing problems, and improve the efficiency of their businesses.

Surgeons May Use Hand Gestures to Manipulate MRI Images in OR

“Doctors may soon be using a system in the operating room that recognizes hand gestures as commands to tell a computer to browse and display medical images of the patient during a surgery.

Surgeons routinely need to review medical images and records during surgery, but stepping away from the operating table and touching a keyboard and mouse can delay the procedure and increase the risk of spreading infection-causing bacteria, said Juan Pablo Wachs, an assistant professor of industrial engineering at Purdue University.

“One of the most ubiquitous pieces of equipment in U.S. surgical units is the computer workstation, which allows access to medical images before and during surgery,” he said. “However, computers and their peripherals are difficult to sterilize, and keyboards and mice have been found to be a source of contamination. Also, when nurses or assistants operate the keyboard for the surgeon, the process of conveying information accurately has proven cumbersome and inefficient since spoken dialogue can be time-consuming and leads to frustration and delays in the surgery.”

Researchers are creating a system that uses depth-sensing cameras and specialized algorithms to recognize hand gestures as commands to manipulate MRI images on a large display. Recent research to develop the algorithms has been led by doctoral student Mithun George Jacob”… Read more

Source: ehealthserver.com
Read the full article

Doctors 2.0™ & You – The First Confirmed Keynotes and Themes

6 – 7 June 2013, Paris, France.
The 3rd international and patient inclusive Doctors 2.0™ & You congress is still accepting applications for speakers, sponsors, posters and start-ups. Doctors 2.0™ and You, in pursuit of its mission to make things better for patients everywhere, is a “patient inclusive” conference patients includedwhich engages physicians and healthcare providers to interact with patients, industry, government and payers. This engagement covers the considered use of health 2.0 tools, communities, apps and social media for the improvement of care.Topics will include: Social Media and medical storytelling, blogs and video, online communities, mobile apps and accessories, quantified self, big data, trial recruitment, serious games, personal health records, drug rating…Doctors 2.0™ & You is again partnering with Medicine X conference, organized by Dr Larry Chu of Stanford Medical School.According to Dr Berci Mesko (Hungary), Europe’s leading physician in social media and an international ambassador for Doctors 2.0™ & You, “if you can attend only one conference this year, it should be Doctors 2.0 & You, my favorite for its content and the people.”

Kerri Sparling, patient advocate and well-known blogger in diabetes (USA) along with Berci Mesko are the first two 2013 keynotes announced by conference organizer, Denise Silber. “We are delighted by this first selection; to propose one patient and one physician, from two continents, male and female, who are both truly dedicated to the improvement of care through web 2.0 and social media.”

The Doctors 2.0™ & You program includes 16 parallel sessions, intense networking, awards and contests, and, of course, the plenary. Previous keynotes have included Jennifer Dyer (US), Lucien Engelen (Netherlands), Victor Montori (US), Yossi Bahagon (Israel) and Denise Silber (France).

The participation of representatives from nearly 30 countries makes for a most unique networking experience.

Patient representatives should contact the organizers for free seats, space providing, on a first come, first served basis.

Early Bird rates run until December 15th 2012

For further information, please visit:
http://www.doctors20.com

About Doctors 2.0™ & You
Now in its third edition, Doctors 2.0™ & You is the first international conference of its kind to examine how doctors and patients are using social media, applications and web 2.0 tools to work with peers, governments, industry and payers. The conference draws on the expertise of physicians, patient communities, online and mobile tool providers, hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical companies and governments to help address the role of new technology in healthcare from both the doctor and patient perspective.

HL7 Standards soon to be free of charge

Health Level Seven® International (HL7®), the global leader in developing interoperability standards for healthcare IT, announced its decision to make much of its intellectual property (IP), including standards, freely available under licensing terms. The landmark decision represents HL7′s commitment to the betterment of healthcare worldwide by ensuring that all stakeholders have equal access to its HIT standards. The new policy is expected to take effect in the first quarter of 2013.

“HL7′s vision is to make its collaborative, consensus-driven standards the best and most widely used in healthcare,” said Charles Jaffe, MD, PhD, CEO of HL7. “By eliminating this barrier to implementation, we can come closer to realizing our goal, in which healthcare IT can reduce costs and improve the quality of care. Coupled with increasing government demand for standards that do not require a licensing fee, our decision to move toward free standards is perfectly aligned. To this end, we have already received enthusiastic support for this decision from key healthcare stakeholders.”

“This announcement is the most significant standards development in the past decade, said John Halamka, MD, MS, Chief Information Officer of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “It ensures that every stakeholder will have ready access to the content standards they need for Meaningful Use. Enormous thanks to everyone who worked on this effort.”

The volunteer-created standards and other select pieces of intellectual property will be made available to the international healthcare community after a period of careful analysis and planning by HL7, expected to take several months. In the interim, the traditional IP/membership model which includes access to, and the right to use HL7 standards, will continue to be in effect. Following completion of the analysis, HL7 expects to transition directly to a model in which use of HL7 standards and select IP is independent of HL7 membership. HL7 will continue to consult with its members to make their investment more valuable, and will seek their input to make this transition seamless and reflective of member needs.

“The IP from HL7 is crucial to achieving interoperability among healthcare providers,” said Christopher G. Chute, MD, DrPH, Chair, ISO TC215 on Health Informatics. “It enables efficient and effective care across multidisciplinary teams that increasingly are the norm for healthcare. HL7′s decision to make these resources effectively a public good is hugely welcome and will accelerate their value to society and patients everywhere. HL7 now more than ever deserves support and membership from the broader health community to ensure these resource remain state-of-the-art and freely available.”

More information on HL7 membership and standards is available at www.hl7.org.

About Health Level Seven (HL7) International
Founded in 1987, Health Level Seven International is the global authority for healthcare Information interoperability and standards with affiliates established in more than 30 countries. HL7 is a nonprofit, ANSI-accredited standards development organization dedicated to providing a comprehensive framework and related standards for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information that supports clinical practice and the management, delivery and evaluation of health services. HL7′s more than 2,300 members represent approximately 500 corporate members, which include more than 90 percent of the information systems vendors serving healthcare. HL7 collaborates with other standards developers and provider, payer, philanthropic and government agencies at the highest levels to ensure the development of comprehensive and reliable standards and successful interoperability efforts.

Proactive publication of clinical trial data – discussing the way forward

09/08/2012 – The European Medicines Agency has announced that it will proactively publish clinical trial data and enable access to full data sets by interested parties. A number of practical and policy issues need to be addressed before complex data sets can be made available.

The Agency is organising a workshop on 22 November 2012 to listen to the views, interests, and concerns from a broad range of institutions, groups and individuals. Results from the workshop will help the Agency define the modalities of proactive access to clinical trial data, in a way that best serves patients and public health in an open and transparent forum.

Registration is open until 31 October 2012. Expressions of interest should be sent to ctdataworkshop@ema.europa.eu by 31 October 2012. Places are limited to 150 and will be offered on a first-come-first-served basis.

Source: EMA News and press releases - http://www.ema.europa.eu