Introduction to iCARE Secure Data Environment
The iCARE Environment is a cloud-based, big data analytics platform. It allows clinicians, researchers and data scientists to access large-scale, highly curated databases for the purposes of research, clinical audit and service evaluation. The iCARE Environment has a number of data analysis tools available, such as Python, R and STATA.
The iCARE Environment sits entirely within the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (ICHT) infrastructure. This, combined with the iCARE Team’s robust method of data de-identification, make the Environment an incredibly secure platform. The fact that it can be accessed remotely using the Trust’s Virtual Desktop Infrastructure means that researchers can perform their work remotely, and are therefore not constrained by location.
Information for researchers and patients and public
Approved list of projects and governance and security
Governance and Security
How we work with data and what data set we hold
Our aim is, to create a secure, trustworthy ecosystem that seamlessly connects NHS and academic data repositories through federated data access at scale. By developing innovative tools and best practices, we aim to revolutionise healthcare data science enhancing research quality and cross-institutional collaboration while ensuring robust governance and public trust. This approach will drive impactful research, ultimately benefiting patients, practitioners, and the public both nationally and globally.
The Five Safes Framework
The iCARE secure data environment implements the Five Safes framework, ensuring comprehensive protection for sensitive health and social data.
Safe people
iCARE grants data access only to qualified, institutionally-affiliated researchers with verified Data Protection and Governance training, ensuring ethical handling of sensitive information.
Safe projects
iCARE approves only projects with clear ethical protocols and public benefits. All projects require prior approval from the data custodian. Detailed access information is available in the researchers FAQs.
Safe settings
Our system features cutting-edge security with two-tier architecture separating identifiable and pseudonymised data. The research environment is internet-isolated, with no printing capabilities and restricted data transfer, balancing protection and research needs.
Safe Data
Researchers access only essential, pseudonymised data after meeting strict requirements. All identifiable information is removed or pseudonymised during extraction, ensuring confidentiality while supporting research objectives.
Safe Outputs
All research outputs undergo rigorous statistical disclosure control and review. Our research team ensures each submission meets publication standards and confidentiality requirements before release.
iCARE
ICARE connects to both clinical and non-clinical systems in ICHT and has the ability to pull data through in close to real time, anonymise and make data avalible for use in Research, evaluation and clinical analytics. ICARE has REC database approal to host ICHT routinely captured clinical information. Our DPIA can be extended to cover non-clinical systems, and we currently host safety, experience, staffing and envrionemntal data.
ICARE is connected to Cerner and pulls large volumes of data into our data lake and warehouse.
Linkage to whole systems integrated care (WSIC) data
As the iCARE Environment holds both ICHT data and Northwest London WSIC data, linkage can be performed between the two datasets all whilst keeping the data completely de-identified. This allows researchers to examine both primary and secondary care data for patients in the region, thus broadening the spectre of research questions that can be answered.
New database curation
The iCARE Environment allows for the curation of new, bespoke patient datasets. By expanding the datasets that are available to researchers on the Environment, the iCARE team can widen the scope of potential research.
Care information exchange – patient electronic health record
We are connected to the Care Information Exchange (CIE) enabling us to carry out research that engages directly with patients.
Linked images dataset
The iCARE Team are currently in the process of linking routinely captured patient data with de-identified clinical images for the same patients. The iCARE Environment’s robust capacity allows for a large amount of images to be stored on the platform and accessed by researchers.
Linked tissue bank datasets
The iCARE Environment will also hold the de-identified datasets linked to the Imperial College Healthcare Tissue Bank. For more information on this, please visit the Tissue Banking and Genomics page
Contact us
For general enquiries email: imperial.dcs@nhs.net
For data access enquiries email: imperial.dataaccessrequest@nhs.net
iCARE social media
X: imperial_iCARE (link)