ATra® Privacy Analytics

Secure data matching and exchange for advancing public health and research.

A pioneering secure digital system developed by Georgetown University that preserves privacy while sharing data critical for public health action.

The opportunity

The ATra^® Privacy Analytics (also known as the Black Box project) presents transformative opportunities for sharing of sensitive data beyond its current HIV surveillance applications. This secure, privacy-preserving platform can address challenges across multiple domains where private health information sharing and deduplication across jurisdictions and other entities are critical. By serving as a model for secure interoperability, and supporting more accurate population health metrics, the ATra^® technology has the potential to fundamentally improve how vital data are shared and reconciled across organizational boundaries.

“ATra^® Black Box has decreased the number of hours spent by staff on interstate calls and has helped resolve cases that were previously identified as not in care.”

Carol Swain

Director, Bureau of HIV/AIDS Epidemiology

NY State Dept. of Health

How it works

The ATra^® Black Box employs customized matching algorithms within a secure computing environment that identify potential duplicate case records across jurisdictions and other entities. The platform detects matches using a deterministic set of rules without exposing sensitive personal information. This secure approach enables public health departments to address issues caused by patient migration and cross-jurisdictional care seeking, while maintaining strict confidentiality standards. The system not only identifies duplicates but also facilitates appropriate data exchange between authorized entities, ensuring that public health data remain accurate, complete, and timely despite geographical fragmentation of data systems and data ownership.

“Our work provides public health jurisdictions with a tool that improves the quality of local and national disease data. It also reduces the time needed to process this data, preserving scarce public resources and staff time.”

Anne Rhodes

Director, Health Data Analytics Program

Current projects

We have advanced several innovative implementations of the ATra^® Black Box technology, each addressing critical data challenges in different public health contexts.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Black Box project | Secure De-duplication Tool for HIV Surveillance

The CDC Black Box project empowers public health jurisdictions nationwide to enhance their HIV surveillance activities through Georgetown’s ATra^® infrastructure. Building on successful NIH and CDC pilot programs that initially connected DC, MD, VA, and later expanded to eight East Coast jurisdictions, this secure platform enables rapid data exchange for persons with HIV while adhering to the highest security and confidentiality standards.

By facilitating this protected information sharing, the project significantly improves the timeliness, completeness, and accuracy of both local and national HIV surveillance data—metrics crucial for evaluating progress on key health outcomes and national indicators for the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative. To date, 40 jurisdictions have established data sharing agreements with Georgetown and actively participate in these critical de-duplication activities.

For more information about this project, please contact Anne Rhodes, Director of the Health Data Analytics Program: anne.rhodes@georgetown.edu.

DC Cohort Project | Automating Data Exchange to Enhance HIV Care and Research in Washington, DC

Our Office is collaborating with George Washington University to improve and expand data sharing between the DC Cohort—a comprehensive longitudinal study tracking over 19,000 consenting patients receiving HIV prevention services or care across 15 medical sites in the DC Metro area—and the DC Department of Health. This initiative automates critical data exchange processes while ensuring that updated medical care information and other key metrics flow seamlessly to both the DC Cohort Coordinating Center at GW and the DC Department of Health.

Funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), this project aims to significantly improve the quality of care and treatment for people accessing HIV prevention and care services throughout the District of Columbia. The DC Cohort currently utilizes the ATra^® Black Box to share key HIV data on Cohort participants while preserving the privacy of participant data by only sharing de-identified data with GW, while allowing the DC Department of Health to receive updates needed for effective disease prevention and management. Currently, this project shares HIV, STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection), and Hepatitis data for those enrolled in the study with a valid consent. Future plans include sharing cancer registry, TB, and Medicaid data for the DC Cohort participants.

Enhancements Project | Advancing Data Analytics for Improved HIV Surveillance Outcomes

The Enhancements Project represents a strategic partnership between Georgetown University and multiple public health jurisdictions aimed at revolutionizing data analytics to significantly improve the utility of HIV surveillance data. This collaborative initiative has already delivered several key innovations to HIV surveillance data sharing, including sophisticated updates to matching algorithms, improved residential address tracking, advanced vital status quality checks, and deduplication of persons across specific geographic areas.

Current efforts focus on expanding the system’s capabilities to generate real-time care continuum information, enabling on-demand matching, and advanced analytics including interactive mapping and linking with other important HIV care datasets such as Medicaid and Ryan White.The project team is also enhancing the ATra^® Black Box’s analytic capacity to respond to real-time queries, creating a more responsive and dynamic tool for public health decision-making. These advancements collectively strengthen the foundation for data-driven HIV prevention and treatment strategies across participating jurisdictions.

To learn more about this groundbreaking project, you can contact Anne Rhodes, Director of the Health Data Analytics Program at anne.rhodes@georgetown.edu.