Flying Blind is a series of three reports dedicated to uncovering the acute levels of data fragmentation existing at all levels of Australia’s health landscape.
In our previous blog, The Ethics Quagmire: Case Studies you might have read the case study by Kathy Tannous concerning the difficulties she has faced getting ethics approval from three ethics committees. But are there problems closer to home for researchers, in their own institutions, even when only one HREC is involved? We think so. But the solution may also lie with these institutions, in the better application of existing guidelines. We explain how below.
A set of three reports that make useful observations about health data management/sharing, research ethics review and the operation of HRECs.
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HRECs are responsible for providing ethics approval for most publicly funded human research in Australia that involves people; the research can’t proceed without it. This includes research as diverse as a clinical trial, where patients are receiving experimental new medications and treatments, to surveys and research using existing datasets- the types of data based research considered by the Productivity Commission.
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