How We Protect your Health Information and Keep It Safe
We commit to keeping your personal health information (PHI) private. We make sure that all staff know this and use your PHI only for the reasons you have agreed to and those allowed by law. We make sure your PHI is secure by having rules in place, and conducting audits and investigations.
What We Collect
We gather PHI about you, from you or from the person acting on your behalf which may include your name, date of birth, address, health history, or records of your care. When you permit us, or the law lets us, we gather PHI about you from others such as your family doctor.
We also collect PHI about you from shared electronic health record (EHR) systems, such as the one Ontario Shores shares with Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care (Waypoint) and the Royal Ottawa Healthcare Group, other hospitals who use the same kind of EHR, or provincial systems like the provincial EHR that are shared with other health care providers in Ontario.
Why We Have a Shared Electronic Health System and How We Use Your Information
The objective is to share the appropriate information with the other health care practitioners involved in your care to make sure that:
- To obtain and share appropriate information quickly with health care providers involved in your care so they can provide timely, quality and safe care;
- To better manage your care as you move from one provider to another;
- To improve our programs and services;
- To receive payment for your treatment and care;
- To improve our quality practice, like doing surveys;
- To protect your rights under the Human Rights Code;
- To teach;
- To fundraise;
- To conduct research;
- For statistics; and
- For legal reasons.
What Are Your Rights?
- To provide you with better care;
- To improve our programs and services;
- To help reduce risk;
- To receive payment for your treatment and care;
- To improve our quality practice, like doing surveys;
- To promote practices in support of your rights under the Human Rights Code;
- To teach;
- To fundraise
- To conduct research;
- For statistics; and
- For legal reasons.
What Are Your Rights?
- Read and receive copies of your health record and to ask us to correct something if you think it is wrong;
- Withdraw your consent for all or some of the above uses and sharing of your PHI by written approval;
- Change your mind if you do not want us to use or share your information;
- Be told if your information is lost, stolen or shared without consent from you or the law; and
- Ask us for a list of how we use or share your health record.
If You Have a Privacy Question or Complaint
- Speak with your doctor
- Call Health Information Management at 905-430-4055 ext. 6859
- Call the Privacy Office at 905-430-4055 Ext. 6712
- Call the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario at 416-326-3333 or
toll-free at 1-800-387-0073, or visit their website at www.ipc.on.ca