Discovery Explorer- Specification
This version : (0-1 Draft)
Abstract
Discovery Explorer is a web based application that provides insights into population level and personal health data.
The types of insights or 'visualisations' include dashboards, reports, and lists, in addition to personalised and condition specific record views and derived information for decision support. The application is one of a suite of utilities that provide user interfaces that are part of the Discovery Data Service (DDS) and as such takes advantage of the cross-application facilities such user authentication, authorisation (e.g. single sign on) as well as the publication/ subscription rules defined by data sharing agreements and projects.
This specification does not cover the content of the visualisations, and is limited to describing the overall minimum capabilities of the application at a particular point in time.
Summary of changes
There have been no substantial changes since the previous version. For minor changes see the change log
Access- authentication and authorisation
This section covers the cross application Discovery capabilities of authentication and authorisation in the context of Explorer.The actual process of Authentication within Discovery is specified elsewhere, including the use of the openID Connect, protocol, as is the process of Authorisation as supported by the Oauth 2.0 protocol together with a form of derived attribute based access control which is used to fulfil the requirements in this specification.
In the context of Explorer, the approach to authentication is closely linked to the authorisation to access functionality within the application,
Authentication approach it is also associated with the nature and breadth of the data resources available via the application. The latter is specified at length via the data sharing manager specification and the data sharing project manage specification.To summarise these, suffice it to say that any data made available to a user has been made available as a result of specific permission of the data controllers of the data, for the explicit purposes within explorer, these permissions manifested through a set of machine readable data sharing rules. Any organisational related data is provided by permission from the organisations so named.
Data sharing agreements and data sharing projects
Access to Data via DDS is subject to a data sharing agreement, no matter who is accessing the data. The data sharing agreement is a high level agreement, usually made at a local regional level, which describes the general purposes for which the data can be used and for which purposes. An agreement is made between a set of publishers (those that contribute the data and are the data controllers within Discovery) and a set of subscribers (those that wish to access some of the data made available), or sometimes a class of subscribers.
Access to Data via DDS is also subject to a data sharing project level agreement (DSPA). This level is more explicit about things such as the nature of the data flow, a specific data set, whether detailed or aggregate, project level consent model, scheduling of data and data format. Every DSPA is associated with one data sharing agreement and there are usually many project level agreements for each DSA.
Having established the policy of what data a subscriber, or class of subscribers, can access, the Explorer is able to make some or all of that data available as further defined by to the relevant levels of authentication and role based authorisations. In effect the combination of conventional role based access control and data policies make this an attribute based access control model.
In the context of use of explorer data sharing projects are established to enable access to a set of dashboards made available through the project data set.
Authentication and authorisation levels
Specifically, 3 levels of authentication are supported, and each level is associated with authorisation to access the data made available via the DSAs, commensurate with the level of identity management and authentication.
Level 1
Explorer is provisioned in a way that any member of the public can access high level information.
A data sharing project is configured to enable access to CCG level aggregate data, from within a data set which encompasses the data used in the dashboards i.e. is directly matched to the cumulative total of the value sets and patient characteristics used by the Dashboards. Only those dashboards and value sets authorised as part of the data sharing project will be designed and made available.
At level 1, a person, intending to be a user should able to create their own account, by entering their user id (email) their name and password and using email verification to activate account.
Once having created the account, a user is able to log on with user id and password, with an email based password refresh facility for lost or forgotten user ids
Once an account is created the user is assigned a role that enables them to view only those dashboards configured to show data in the following way
- At the level of a CCG or above i.e. comparison of patient data aggregated to CCG according to the GP practice they are registered at.
- Age and ethnicity.
- Clinical and administrative value sets as defined by the project
- Specific sets of high level dashboards / reports as defined by the project.