This Honest Broker System has been developed primarily to support faculty, staff, and graduate students who perform collaborative research with the following inter-related groups: University of Pittsburgh Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI), UPMC Department of Pathology, Pitt Biospecimen Core (PBC), Department of Otolaryngology of the Eye and Ear Institute, Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC Gynecologic Oncology Division of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences and Womens Health, UPMC ISD/Pathology Informatics, UPMC ISD/Oncology Informatics and the UPMC Network Cancer Registry/UPMC Hillman Cancer Center Registry Information Services (RIS).
"For further information, please see the Honest Broker and IRB Services, or view the Honest Broker IRB Protocol and IRB Approval Letter.
Mission of the Honest Broker Service
To assure OHRP, IRB and HIPAA compliance for the release of human tissues and related information involving data stored in applications developed, managed and/or utilized by the Department of Biomedical Informatics, the Center for Pathology Quality and Healthcare Research, the Pitt Biospecimen Core, and/or the UPMC Network Cancer Registry.
Rationale for a Collaborative Honest Broker Service
- Enhance collaborative research efforts between centers
- Monitor requests for tissue & data use practices
- Quality assurance and process improvement
- Preparation for research
- Non-human subjects research (IRB Exempt)
- IRB-approved research
- Purpose
- De-identification
- Honest research
- Functioning
- Tissue banker has the linkage codes
- Strips identifiers (de-identifies)
- Provides additional clinical and/or pathology information
