If you are a Chief of Staff or a Chief of Department of a hospital, chances are you will at some point have to manage a fitness to practice situation involving one of your physician colleagues.  These cases need to be managed with compassion and care. The Public Hospitals Act and the hospital’s by-laws set… Read more »

On May 3rd, the Information and Privacy Commissioner and his team was in Thunder Bay. He released a new presentation He receives between 300-350 health privacy complaints annually He talked about the new social worker prosecution He reminded the audience about the new Code of Procedures for health privacy cases with his office He also mentioned… Read more »

Do you struggle as a lawyer for creative thinking time?  If you don’t schedule it in – it simply doesn’t happen.  Juggling client files and professional development may leave little time for innovation. I was interviewed by The Lawyers Weekly on  the art of brainstorming. Let me know what you think! Click here: Kate Dewhirst

From time to time I hear from lawyers that they feel “stuck”.  Stuck in a position that they don’t enjoy – but with a salary they feel they can’t match elsewhere. Here is an article to inspire you about how to take your legal training and expand your services into new territory. I was interviewed… Read more »

Trying to keep up with all that is happening in health privacy these days?  It’s busy! Here are five updates Ontario health care organizations should know: 1. IPC just notified the public about a new snooping prosecution.  A student at a family health team was fined $25,000 for a privacy breach involving 139 patients (she… Read more »

Oh you read that right. I went to Elton John’s Oscar Party in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. that’s me on the red carpet. Want to know how I got there?  You can read the back story here. It was a wild ride for a fairly introverted lawyer from Toronto with two little kids under… Read more »

If you are a practicing clinician (nurse, doctor, dentist, midwife, psychologist, OT, PT, social worker etc.) there are three legal questions you should be able to answer: What laws apply to you? Who makes treatment and information decisions for your patients? What are your patients’ privacy rights? I recently spoke at the Hamilton Health Sciences “Ethics… Read more »

As you may know, the Auditor General released a report criticizing the Public Hospitals Act Professional Staff appointment appeals process for being time-consuming and costly. Here is an excerpt from that report. Auditor General Report 2016 Excerpt Your hospital board may be interested to hear what it’s all about and their 18 responsibilities and the 9 tools… Read more »

Hello?  Are you still there? This is not the most exciting topic in the universe – I know. But, it is really important. Risks There are 6 types of risk you need to be monitoring as Board members of a family health team: Clinical Financial Human Strategic Legal/Regulatory Technological Your Executive Director or Administrator needs… Read more »

I was recently at an event with a “mixed group” – a mix of lawyers and non-lawyers. As we were introducing ourselves, a few of the lawyers seemed to distance themselves from law and didn’t want to be identified as a “lawyer”.  I was surprised (and a bit saddened) at how many of the lawyers… Read more »