Data Sharing Strategies to Combat Child Abuse

All government entities possess information that may assist other agencies in the prevention, treatment and prosecution of child abuse. Due to complex and arguably outdated confidentiality laws, agencies are reluctant to share information with others. Whether pertaining to confidential child abuse records, medical records, or law enforcement reports, every agency that provides services to the community wants to receive information pertaining to the customers they serve. The challenge is to find a way to safely and securely share data to better serve victims of child abuse and their families, without exposure to undue liability in the process. By creating a highly secure and heavily encrypted environment, we have developed a process to safely share information among members of Child Fatality Review Teams. This project not only permits safe sharing, but it also offers innovative ways to ensure accountability in the unlikely event of a breach of security. We has developed a method to track the source of leaks using proprietary encryption to allow printed documents to be traced back to the user that last printed them. Through the combination of secure electronic storage and traceable printed documents, This is a unique approach to silo-busting. In addition to simply storing documents pertinent to a Child Fatality Review Team meeting, this also permits subscribing hospitals to electronically submit and track child abuse reports. Through these electronic reports, statistics can be analyzed to better allocate prevention resources based on trends in the community. Through data sharing we can reduce child abuse.