Proposals

Abstract

University of Washington students do not have adequate resources to conduct research using secured UW Medicine patient datasets. Due to federal law (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) and UW Medicine policy, patient data may be accessed only through secure hardware and support infrastructure, following authorization by the UW Medicine Institutional Review Board (IRB). UW Medicine Information Technology Services and the Institute of Translational Health Sciences provide these services, but there are currently insufficient computational and data transfer resources supporting student/trainee use of this infrastructure. In order to increase student access to data and computational resources for clinical research, we request support from the Student Technology Fee fund to purchase computers and data transfer credits to be used over the next 5+ years beginning March 2018. Students with research projects approved by the IRB and supported by faculty will be able to gain access to these computational resources. Lowering the barrier to access will benefit both the student body as well as augment the state of university-wide research. All projects will be performed by trainees as both an educational and research activity, and any unused computer resources will be made available to trainees not performing clinical research.