18 Sep Care Everywhere and Research

Several questions have recently arisen regarding the use of the Care Everywhere platform for research purposes at UW–Madison and UW Health.

Any information that has been accessed for direct patient care needs (i.e. provision of treatment, including care coordination) and is visible in Health Link without needing to take additional action may be used for research purposes as it is considered part of the patient’s health record at UW Health.

Care Everywhere may not be queried nor may documents be downloaded for research purposes. Doing so is a violation of Epic’s terms of use and may result in UW losing access to the platform.

Accessing new information (i.e. query or download) about a patient is never appropriate if the purpose is research recruitment or research data collection.

There may be situations when it may be appropriate to use Care Everywhere to access new information (i.e. query or download) about a patient who is participating in clinical research. Those situations must fall under provision of treatment for the patient. Most often these will be for interventional trials where patients are receiving ongoing treatment.

Please note that research coordinators do not have security to access new information from Care Everywhere. A provider connected with the study should assess if the information is needed for treatment provision.

More information, including examples of appropriate and inappropriate uses of Care Everywhere for research, can be found on The Pulse.