Memory of understanding

I. BelSECT is the Belgian Society of ExtraCorporeal Technology, founded in 1979.

II. The database committee is a subcommittee of BelSECT.

III. The purpose of the perfusion database committee is to collect information of perfusion related clinical activity in Belgian cardiac centers. Analysis of this data has to lead to quality improvement of perfusion activity in Belgium.

IV. The data collection will never serve to rank centers or perfusionists, and the data will never be shared with other parties. Anonymous results can be presented to other parties after approval by the BelSECT board. The database committee will never participate in malpractice investigation or conformity checking with legal requirements of centers and perfusionists.

V. The data collection will be done anonymously. Participating centers will have a secret code. Nor members of the board, nor members of the database committee will have access to these codes. We refer to the ‘database user guide’ for more details.

VI. The data-manager is responsible for the data collection, data optimisation and data mapping in preparation of the data-analysis. The data-manager optimises the layout of the reports, as proposed by the database committee.

VII. The data-analyst is an independent expert in biomedical statistics, responsible for data analysis. The data-analyst interfaces with the datamanager concerning the data and with the Committee concerning the dataanalysis.

VIII. The access to the data has three levels. The first two levels concern the Database Committee members.
a. The first level is unrestricted. This access is given to the data-analyst and the data manager.
b. The second level is restricted to a need to know level, defined by the committee and this access is given to all the members of the database committee.
c. The third level is restricted to the centers own data. This access is given to the datamanager of each center. This access is unrestricted in time but limited to the data of the center. All members of the committee, including the data manager and the data
analyst are under the medical secret.

IX. The Privacy Law (Dec 8th 1992) dictates that: (1) The database should be registered at the Commission for Protection of Privacy; (2) All centres have to be informed about the identity and the address of the holder of the
database, the purpose of the database, the fact that one can get more information at the "Commission Protection of Privacy", the right to access and when necessary to correct their data; (3) The person responsible for analyzing the data, has to indicate the persons who have access to the data. The contents as well as the limits of this access have to be described in a registry. The registry process of the registry of the perfusion database committee is processed at the Commission for Protection of Privacy,
Ministry of Justice, Hoogstraat 139, B-1000 Brussel under unique number VT005007966.

X. The chairman of the database committee is chosen by the board of directors of BelSECT. The board of directors of BelSECT nominates and dismisses the members of the Committee. The number of members can be changed on the suggestion of the chairman of the committee. Violation of the confidentiality (identified by the committee) leads to automatic dismissal of the member or chairman by the board of directors of BelSECT.

XI. The chairman of the database committee reports to the board of directors of BelSECT on a regular basis, as requested by the board or the committee. In addition, an annual report is given at the general assembly of BelSECT. He will answers to the questions of the members concerning all matters of the committee. The website will be updated on a regular basis.

XII. BelSECT will take charge of the legal protection of the committee members and the perfusion database.