The Statistical Institute of Quebec (ISQ) will allow scientific researchers to have faster access to the administrative data of Quebecers, announced Monday the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard.
The ISQ has already served since 2019 as a one-stop shop for researchers wishing to obtain depersonalized data from the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ), the Ministry of Health and Social Services, the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Higher Education.
Mr. Girard, who is the minister responsible for the ISQ, said Monday that the government body will now be able to respond more quickly to requests from researchers. Thus, the ISQ will no longer have to contact the Commission d’accès à l’information or the departments concerned to create files accessible for scientific purposes.
With this administrative change, the Minister hopes to reduce response times to six months, while researchers sometimes have to wait up to two years.
The government also intends to expand access to data. Mr. Girard said that the Coalition avenir Québec, if it is returned to power, will add those of Revenu Québec, the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Solidarity and the Ministry of Immigration. Mr. Girard expects significant benefits that will be used by the government.
“Our researchers will make us discover all sorts of things that we don’t know today,” he said.
The case of health
Present at the announcement, the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, for his part declared that the widening of access to data will be used to better understand the demand for health care. “What gets measured gets better,” he said.
According to the Minister, the results of the research that can be done will also be used to improve health prevention. “In health, we are very good at understanding supply, but we have a very poor understanding of demand,” he said.
Mr. Dubé recalled that at the same time, Bill 19 on access to clinical data, which died on the order paper with the end of the legislature, is complementary with the enlargement announced for scientific purposes. “We’ll come back to it,” he said. Bill 19 works much more with health management data, which is not at all what we are talking about here. »
The government announced Monday the creation of a sixth data access center managed by the ISQ, which will be located at the Center hospitalier universitaire Saint-Justine.
Quebec’s chief statistician, Simon Bergeron, said confidentiality rules govern the data researchers have access to. They can only obtain them at the centers managed by the ISQ or remotely in a more limited version.
“The valorization of this data must always be done while respecting the protection of personal information and the security of information,” said Mr. Bergeron.
Currently 1,000 researchers from universities or hospital research centers are registered with the ISQ.