Another Distributed Aggregated Query Project (SHRINE)

The Harvard Catalyst's Informatics Program has developed technology in lock step with regulatory and ethical requirements to allow authorized investigators to acquire robust sample sizes across all Harvard-affiliated healthcare institutions. We call this querying system SHRINE (Shared Health Research Information Network). As shown in the diagrams below, there is no central database but rather the SHRINE queries are distributed across each of the participating institutional databases. In this way, each institution maintains autonomy, control, and monitoring of all transactions on behalf of its patients.