Government moots science use of Danish national registers

Denmark’s government has created a committee to improve access to patient data of citizens with the goal of speeding up and improving health research.

Health minister Astrid Krag set up the committee, named Strategic Alliance for Register and Health Data (Stars), to improve transparency and coordination of the collection, processing and dissemination of data on health. This would extend to setting out some rules on quality control of data that is used in research. 

"In Denmark we have a long tradition of collecting statistical information about Danes’ health and diseases, and we have some of the world’s best national health registers and national biobanks,” said Krag. She added that using information from these registers is a unique opportunity to support the development of therapies for patients.