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 »

Maria McDonald of McDonald Human Resources Law and I just did a webinar on “Managing difficult employees and how to terminate employment with compassion” for a group of family health teams. Watch this 6-minute video to learn some tips from Maria when dealing with performance management. Interested in joining our Legal Issues for Family Health Teams… Read more »

In 2016 we saw changes to health privacy legislation in Ontario.  There were significant developments in health privacy litigation and additional certifications of class actions for health privacy breaches.  There were at least two physicians in Ontario who had their licenses to practice suspended for snooping in health records and at least two nurses faced… Read more »

Happy new year! If you are a health care Privacy Officer, January is a great time to remind your organization about privacy. By sending out an annual privacy email or privacy update in a newsletter – you keep privacy top of mind for your teams and you have something tangible to show your organization’s commitment… Read more »