TITLE
RESOLUTION RATIFYING THE COUNTY MAYOR OR COUNTY MAYOR�S DESIGNEE'S ACTION IN APPROVING AND EXECUTING AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN MIAMI-DADE COUNTY AND THE POLICY AND SERVICES RESEARCH DATA CENTER AT THE LOUIS DE LA PARTE FLORIDA MENTAL HEALTH INSTITUTE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA FOR THE COUNTY TO SHARE CLIENT DATA OBTAINED FROM THE COUNTY�S HOMELESS MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM WITH THE UNIVERSITY

BODY
WHEREAS, the Board of County Commissioners (�Board�) desires to accomplish the purposes outlined in the accompanying memorandum, a copy of which is incorporated herein by reference; and
WHEREAS, Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (�Otsuka�) and the South Florida Behavioral Health Network are working in collaboration on technology solutions to improve access to and delivery of community mental health services for people with serious and persistent mental illnesses in Miami-Dade County, with the goal of improving outcomes relating to psychiatric readmission; incarceration and recidivism in the criminal justice system; rates of homelessness; and rates of suicide; and
WHEREAS, Otsuka engaged the services of IBM Research to build on prior work from IBM that uses de-identified, individual client-level data to test various statistical techniques that could generate models to predict the likelihood of a crisis and quantify the impact of various risk factors on this likelihood; and
WHEREAS, information from the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust�s homeless management information system (HMIS) represents a potentially valuable source of information for this research; and
WHEREAS, as part of efforts to minimize any possible risks associated with sharing of client level information, this collaborative partnered with the Policy and Services Research Data Center at the Louis De La Parte Florida Mental Health Institute at the University Of South Florida (�University�), for their experience in managing and analyzing sensitive and protected data, and for their ability to de-identify data for purposes of facilitating the research project to be conducted ultimately by IBM Research; and
WHEREAS, the purpose of this Agreement between the University and Miami-Dade County is to define the roles of the parties; to protect any legally protected privacy interests of the County�s clients; and to protect the institutional interests of the County; while providing homeless data for the sole purpose of facilitating academic research,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FLORIDA, that this Board ratifies the County Mayor or County Mayor�s Designee's action in approving and executing the agreement, attached to this resolution as Exhibit A and incorporated together with the foregoing recitals and the accompanying memorandum herein, between Miami-Dade County and the University, under which the County permits provision of client data obtained from the homeless management information system to the University to de-identify so that only de-identified data will be used in any research ultimately conducted following this data sharing.

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Date:

To: Honorable Chairwoman Rebeca Sosa
and Members, Board of County Commissioners
From: Carlos A. Gimenez
Mayor

Subject: Resolution Ratifying the Memorandum of Agreement between the Policy And Services Research Data Center at the Louis De La Parte Florida Mental Health Institute at The University Of South Florida and Miami-Dade County

STAFF RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation
It is recommended that the Board of County Commissioners (Board) ratify the attached Memorandum of Agreement (the Agreement) between Miami-Dade County and the Policy and Services Research Data Center at the Louis De La Parte Florida Mental Health Institute at the University of South Florida (�University�), to allow for the County to provide information on clients of the County�s homeless continuum of care from the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust�s Homeless Management Information System (�HMIS�) to the University, for purposes of the University de-identifying the client information in the HMIS to be used for research on mental illness. De-identifying is the process which removes any information that identifies a particular client.

Scope
The impact of this Agreement is countywide.

Fiscal Impact/Funding Source
There is no fiscal impact to the County as the Agreement between the County and the University provides that any costs associated with the provision of the data for the research shall be paid by Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals, Inc. directly to the County�s contractor responsible for the HMIS system, Bowman Systems. Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc. was established in 1989 as part of the Otsuka Group and is focused on pharmaceutical and medical device commercial activities in North America, as well as the creation of innovative products to improve health outcomes.

Track Record/Monitor
This agreement for data sharing will be monitored by the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust�s Executive Director Hilda Fernandez and Grants Coordinator/HMIS Coordinator Barbara Golphin.

MANAGER'S BACKGROUND
Background
Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and the South Florida Behavioral Health Network are working in collaboration to explore technology solutions to improve access to and delivery of community mental health services for people with serious and persistent mental illnesses in the county. The goal of this collaboration is to develop ways to improve outcomes across four critical public health and public safety domains: 1) Rates of psychiatric hospital and acute care readmission; 2) Rates of incarceration and recidivism to the criminal justice system; 3) Rates of homelessness; and, 4) Rates of suicide. A key focus of this collaboration involves the use of advanced computer analytic techniques, known as machine learning, to understand whether crisis situations and other adverse outcomes among individuals with severe and persistent mental illness can be predicted. To this end, Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals, Inc. engaged IBM Research to support the collaboration�s efforts. Building on prior work from IBM Research, the team plans to use de-identified, individual patient-level data to test various statistical techniques that could generate models to predict the likelihood of a mental health crisis and to quantify the impact of various risk factors. It is anticipated that this research will generate unique insights into predictors of mental health crises and other adverse outcomes, which offer the potential to design interventions and technologies targeting prevention and more cost effective services.

Based on extensive meetings with stakeholders from across Miami-Dade County, the IBM Research team identified specific data elements they consider critical to the development and testing of predictive analytic models. This includes but is not limited to information from the mental health and substance abuse treatment system managed through South Florida Behavioral Health Network, the criminal justice information system, and the homeless management information system (HMIS) maintained by the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust. This resolution only concerns HMIS information which may include sensitive specific data about individual clients, including but not limited to health-related, mental health and substance abuse information. The University will consolidate and link client level data from the different sources, assign a unique identifier to each client record, and remove any information that could be used to identify unique individuals from the data sets. Once information is de-identified by the University and no longer contains any client-specific data which may be legally confidential, the de-identified information is not sensitive and the University may convey the information to IBM for research and analysis. Under the Agreement, the University will work directly with the County�s contractor responsible for the HMIS system to coordinate the transfer of information to the University. The University has extensive experience performing these types of data manipulations in accordance with data use agreements that correspond to state and federal protections regarding data sharing in the context of protected health information. Pursuant to the terms of the Agreement, the County has received a letter (attached) from the Secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families authorizing the University to receive this protected data from the County.

The University agrees to finish de-identifying all information within six months and return to the County or properly dispose of all protected data within thirty days of completion of the de-identification process, unless legally required to keep said information. The University agrees to maintain the confidentiality of all protected data received from the County and to develop appropriate administrative, physical and technical safeguards to prevent illegal use or disclosure of protected data. The University agrees not to make any use of client information or protected data other than to de-identify the data in accordance with the terms of the Agreement. The Agreement does not contain an indemnification provision favoring either party.

Only the County and the University are parties to this Agreement; Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals, Inc., South Florida Behavioral Health Network and IBM are not parties to this Agreement. The Miami-Dade Homeless Trust is not involved in or party to any contracts concerning this research between Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals, Inc., South Florida Behavioral Health Network and/or IBM. The research project is funded through a direct grant between Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and South Florida Behavioral Health; the County is not a party to that grant. The research project has already commenced its data analysis with other non-homeless data, requiring the execution of the data sharing agreement to ensure the inclusion of homeless data maintained by the County, through the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust.

Due to the type of client data collected and secured by the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust�s Homeless Management Information System, it is necessary to execute an agreement that sets forth the responsibility of the University in securing the data that is being provided to them, for the purposes of the data being de-identified and provided to IBM for the research. The attached Agreement requires the University to comply with all applicable state and federal data protection requirements.


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Russell Benford, Deputy Mayor