Independent Trusted Third Party of the Medical Faculty at RUB
The Trusted Third Party of the Medical Faculty at Ruhr University Bochum (TrustMe.RUB) provides organizational and technical processes to ensure the highest level of patient data protection.
As a core facility of the Medical Research Services of RUB (MRS.RUB), TrustMe.RUB acts as a neutral intermediary between data providers and data users, fulfilling the role of a data trustee. Utilizing specialized software tools, it enables the compliant use of patient data for medical research in adherence to data protection regulations. TrustMe.RUB creates a trustworthy environment that ensures data security, prevents unauthorized access, and safeguards against potential data breaches. This reinforces trust among researchers, patients, and the public in the handling of health data.
Services Provided by TrustMe.RUB
As a data trustee, TrustMe.RUB supports the privacy-compliant processing of sensitive data for research projects.
Projects of TrustMe.RUB
TrustMe.RUB is an integral part of the research data infrastructure and further supports additional research projects.
Questions and Answers
How is the security of the data safeguarded?
All data that can directly identify an individual is replaced with a series of characters (encoded), making it impossible to link the data back to a person directly. Identifiable data is never shared with researchers or other third parties unless explicitly permitted by the individual or mandated by law. Data is provided exclusively for approved research projects following a thorough review process and only in encoded form. Researchers are contractually obligated to protect the data and to delete all data completely upon project completion.
What is record linkage, and why is it used at Bochum University Medicine?
Record linkage is a process that consolidates data from multiple sites and assigns it to a single individual while eliminating duplicates. Data from a person treated at multiple locations across the 13 sites of UK RUB is linked using this process. This requires the patient’s consent for the use of their data for research purposes (Broad Consent).
