Category: Hospitals

The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario just issued decision 84, which is a new access decision. Bottom Line: This decision is consistent with other decisions of the IPC and does not require a change to practice. In this case, a patient of a hospital was concerned that hospital staff were inappropriately viewing her record…. Read more »

Stay with me folks – it’s going to get bumpy. There are some important nuances to understand my headline and this case. Here’s the new health privacy decision of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario #83. This case echoes questions I am asked every week in my practice. It is important reading for any… Read more »

We know this intuitively – but it bears repeating. Health care organizations should be very careful when speaking with the media about specific patient cases. There is a new Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC) health privacy decision directly on this topic. Decision 82 Background: A patient of a hospital died. The family members… Read more »

In April 2018, Canadians came together from coast to coast to coast to grieve and support each other when we learned a bus was hit in Saskatchewan tragically killing 16 young hockey players and seriously injuring many of their teammates. The Humboldt Broncos story made international news and reminded us all of the fragility of… Read more »

In health privacy decision 81 of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, a hospital was asked to make a correction to a discharge summary. The complainant wanted certain words written into the discharge summary “I am going home into the care of my parents’ because I live in [their] house” to reflect what he… Read more »

In decision 80 of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, the wife of a deceased patient was concerned that a hospital doctor wrongly shared her husband’s health information by speaking to a third party about the care he received and that the hospital failed to meet its privacy obligations.  These concerns were raised with… Read more »

Many health care organizations like hospitals, long term care homes, primary care practices, laboratories and pharmacies have video surveillance systems. What happens when someone asks for access to recordings? It depends. Here’s a new story about what might happen. In the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario’s recent decision 78, an individual asked a hospital… Read more »

There are two recent health privacy decisions of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario that have similar facts and similar outcomes. The main message: A doctor (or any other health information custodian) should never ignore a patient’s access request for records. If you do, the IPC won’t be happy. We want a happy IPC…. Read more »

In the last few years, the public has heard A LOT of scary things about electronic privacy scandals. In 2017, Equifax admitted their electronic records were compromised leaving millions of users’ financial information exposed. In May 2017, the WannaCry Ransomware attack negatively impacted 19,000 healthcare appointments across the United Kingdom which response cost the NHS over… Read more »

What does that mean? If you are not a health information custodian in Ontario – stop reading. If you are a health information custodian’s Privacy Officer – keep reading! If you are unsure of whether you are a health information custodian – call me! As you know, all health information custodians in Ontario must complete… Read more »