Prof. Trudo Lemmens, Scholl Chair in Health Law and Policy at the Faculty of Law, was a member of an expert panel of the Council of Canadian Academies which produced an in-depth and timely report on the state of access to health and health-related data in Canada.
Accessing Health and Health-Related Data in Canada examines legal, regulatory and practical challenges with respect to accessing health data in the context of health research and health system innovation, a focus of an upcoming conference at the University of Toronto in May.
Lemmens contributed particularly to two chapters on law and governance and worked also with U of T colleague Dr. David Henry, a professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, on the 14-member expert panel.
The experts investigated the technological and methodological challenges of accessing data; the benefits and risks of such access; legal and ethical considerations; and best practices for governance.
The assessment report, chaired by Andrew K. Bjerring, former president and CEO of Canarie Inc., was commissioned by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Canada’s leading science agency.
The final report will support policy-makers, administrators, clinicians, and researchers in health-related fields who seek to improve the delivery of health and social services to the public.
Access to data and control over the production, dissemination, and use of information, including in the context of health, will be the focus of the May 28-29 conference, "The Constitution of Information: from Gutenberg to Snowden,” organized by Professors Lisa Austin and Ariel Katz at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.
The full report is available on the Council’s website.
