Quebec facilitates access to certain data for researchers

Because “good data, with good researchers, gives good public policies”, the Legault government has issued decrees to facilitate access to data from several ministries.

The Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ) will now be able to provide researchers with matched and depersonalized data from the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ), the Ministry of Health and Social Services, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Higher Education and the ISQ.

Later will come data from the Quebec Revenue Agency, the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security, as well as the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration, added the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard.

The objective behind these government decrees is to lighten the process surrounding requests for access to data, and by extension to reduce the often very long delays that researchers have to contend with.

In the past, there could be a wait of two to three years to obtain certain information, explained the chief statistician of the Institut de la statistique du Québec, Mr. Simon Bergeron.

Since 2019, delays have been reduced to an average of 16 months for obtaining administrative data, due to the creation of a one-stop service at the ISQ, responsible for monitoring requests from researchers. .

The objective is to reduce these delays even further.

“We ultimately aim to bring it back to around six months,” said Mr. Bergeron, pointing out that the waiting time could be longer or shorter depending on the complexity of the requests and the type of information provided.

The government also announced the opening of the first Research Data Access Center of the Institut de la statistique du Québec (CADRISQ) in a hospital setting, at Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal.

This is the sixth CADRISQ.

Health

For the Minister of Health and Social Services, Christian Dubé, access to this data is good news for the health network.

“It will help to better document the interactions between health, income and education. […]. The MSSS will benefit from this data to better understand the demand and be able to carry out prevention,” said the Minister, according to whom the problem of the health system is often that despite a good understanding of the “supply”, the “demand remains misunderstood.