Category: Hospitals

Why is privacy important? Because it is essential for building trust. Trust pops up time and time again in privacy breach stories. In the 2017 sentencing hearing for a social worker in an Ontario family health team who was successfully prosecuted for looking at the health records of five clients without authorization (she had accessed… Read more »

Trust. Trust is the foundation of healthcare. Without trust, patients delay receiving care. Without trust, patients do not share the truth that helps clinicians uncover what is actually happening. Where trust is compromised, patients, their families and caregivers feel vulnerable and unsafe. They go elsewhere or nowhere to seek help. I’ve been studying “trust” in… Read more »

You and your community have signed up to be a Wave 1 Ontario Health Team. Does it feel like you are on a roller coaster? You signed up. You’ve strapped yourself into the seat. You’ve turned the first corner and you hear the “kk-chug”. You start the steep, jerky climb. up. up. up. You are… Read more »

The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario released a new resource today for the general public called “Accessing Your Deceased Relative’s Personal Information“. The resource first addresses rights of access to records held by government. Then the IPC provides guidance to the public how to obtain health information from healthcare providers. The IPC answers the… Read more »

This comes as a surprise to most lay people. In Ontario, and in many jurisdictions around the world, children make their own health privacy decisions when they are “capable” of doing so and not when they reach a specific age. What does that mean? Capacity is presumed. Meaning, healthcare providers presume everyone is capable to… Read more »

One of the most important things to remember when working in health care is that you are not alone. When in doubt, ask for advice. If you ever have cause to think to yourself: “Wow. This is the hardest situation I’ve ever had to manage.” “In all my years of doing this, I am really… Read more »

In the last month I have been asked three times a variation on the theme of this question: “Do we have to tell a patient the full names of our staff if the patient asks?” The answer is generally, yes. Today, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC) published an order on this exact… Read more »

In a new health privacy decision of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, we find out what needs to be proven to show a patient is making a request for access to health records in “bad faith”. Decision 87:  Interprets “Bad Faith” Requests A patient saw a chiropodist at a foot clinic. The patient wanted a copy… Read more »

In Decision 89 of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario deals with an access request, what lengths a health care organization has to go to look for records and what is a “complete health record”. In this case, the complainant asked a community care access centre (CCAC) for access to his deceased wife’s complete… Read more »

The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario just released new guidelines “Avoiding Abandoned Health Records: Guidance for Health Information Custodians Changing Practice“. The guidelines cover: Who is the custodian when there is a change of practice? What obligations do custodians have when changing practice? Avoiding abandoned records What to do if you discover abandoned records… Read more »