Category: Hospitals

Last Friday, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario released two new health privacy decisions. Decision 68 reads like a made for tv movie. It’s a doozy.  Hold on to your socks. The facts are complicated. I’ll try to simplify the back story. Back Story A patient complained that her former spouse (a physician) was… Read more »

This article in the Guardian, Should a doctor always disclose a terminal illness?, had me hopping at the title. Should a doctor always disclose a terminal illness? Absolutely yes.  Every time. Then I read the article.  It gave me pause. Doctors and other health care providers must be truthful and forthcoming.  But, it gave me pause… Read more »

Ding ding ding.  New health privacy decisions are out! The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario just released decision 70 – we are still missing decisions 68 and 69.  I will let you know when they are posted on the IPC’s site.   Here’s my summary of all IPC PHIPA Decisions   UPDATE: The other two have now… Read more »

A new Canadian study published in the American Medical Association journal JAMA found that hospitals have a serious issue when it comes to throwing away paper copies of health records. The study was undertaken by a group at St. Michaels Hospital in Toronto. They went through the recycling and garbage of five teaching hospitals. The results were unsettling…. Read more »

Every health care organization receives complaints. A complaint is any negative feedback received from a patient or family member of a patient about your services. Health care is a complicated service industry and no matter how great the services you deliver are or the quality of your team members, there will always be gaps in… Read more »

One of my favourite activities is working with medical affairs leaders in hospitals managing complaints and concerns about physicians.  But when I tell people about that work – I get a few quizzical looks. Medical affairs? What is that? The public knows very little about the tangled web relationship between hospitals and physicians and their… Read more »

The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario released new guidelines today for disposing of electronic media. These guidelines explain what it means to take “reasonable steps” to safeguard personal health information through secure destruction. The guidelines apply to all custodians under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004.  That means you, health care providers and… Read more »

The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario wrote a recent blog post “Privacy is not a Barrier to Releasing Non-Identifying Statistics“. In particular, the IPC noted an example that the public wants to know how serious the flu-threat is in their community, a risk often measured by the number of local flu-related deaths.  Public members have… Read more »

It’s everyone’s favourite time of the year – physician performance review season for hospitals! Kidding. No one likes this time of year. If you are a Chief of Staff or Chief of Department, performance review season is challenging. Time is short. You may have a long list of physicians to meet. Recipients will take your… Read more »

There are three new decisions of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario under the health privacy legislation. That brings the total number of Orders and Decisions of the IPC to 67. You can read my summary of all 67 IPC PHIPA Decisions Bottom Line: There are no surprises here.  All three decisions upheld the decisions of the custodians. … Read more »