Implementing a hash-based privacy-preserving record linkage tool in the OneFlorida clinical research network.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To implement an open-source tool that performs deterministic privacy-preserving record linkage (RL) in a real-world setting within a large research network.

Materials and methods

We learned 2 efficient deterministic linkage rules using publicly available voter registration data. We then validated the 2 rules' performance with 2 manually curated gold-standard datasets linking electronic health records and claims data from 2 sources. We developed an open-source Python-based tool-OneFL Deduper-that (1) creates seeded hash codes of combinations of patients' quasi-identifiers using a cryptographic one-way hash function to achieve privacy protection and (2) links and deduplicates patient records using a central broker through matching of hash codes with a high precision

SUBMITTER: Bian J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6994009 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature