Health Equity: Respecting Individuals and their Privacy

1
Health Equity Respecting Individuals and their
Privacy

• Amanda Brennan, B.A., LL.B.
• Corporate Privacy Officer Freedom of
  Information Coordinator
• October 4, 2012

2
Respecting Individuals their Privacy

• Privacy Offices typically concern themselves with
  the following issues
• Collection of personal health information (PHI)
• Use of PHI
• Disclosure of PHI
• Storage, Retention and Destruction
• in compliance with the Personal Health
  Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA)

3
Implementation Customization

• Research indicates that implementation should be
  customized to the clinical environment
• Governing committee within each hospital can
  advise on best methods of implementation within
  that hospital
• MSH will support other hospitals through
  implementation in a variety of ways

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Collecting Personal Health Information (PHI)

• Year of birth
• Race
• Religious affiliation
• Disability
• Gender identity
• Sexual orientation
• Family income and number of people income
  supports
• Housing

• Preferred spoken language
• Ability to speak and understand English
• Preferred language for written materials
• Whether or not individual was born in Canada, and
  if not their year of arrival

• Reasonably foreseeable that the information
  collected could identify an individual as a
  patient of the hospital

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Collecting Personal Health Information (PHI)

• Broadly speaking the principles underlying our
  health care system, encoded in the Canada Health
  Act support the goals of this data collection
• s.12(1)(a) In order to satisfy the criterion
  respecting accessibility, the health care
  insurance plan of a province must provide for
  insured health services on a basis that does
  not impede or preclude, either directly or
  indirectly whether by charges made to insured
  persons or otherwise, reasonable access to those
  services by insured persons.

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Collecting Personal Health Information (PHI)

• Collecting with consent building trust
  complying with PHIPA
• Ask patients for knowledgeable consent
• Tell them the purpose of collection
• Be prepared to answer questions about the
  collection, use and disclosure of their PHI
• Document consent
• Permit patients to answer all, some or none of
  the Qs, as they choose

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Use

• PHIPA permits hospitals to use PHI that they have
  collected for
• the purpose for which the information was
  collected
• planning or delivering programs or services that
  the custodian provides evaluating or monitoring
  any of them
• to improve or maintain the quality of care
  orany related programs

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Disclosure

• Aggregate data to the extent it is not
  identifiable can be used and disclosed as it is
  not subject to PHIPA
• To the extent information is identifiable, it
  would be subject to the stricter disclosure
  limitations of PHIPA

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Storage, Retention Destruction

• MSH program stores PHI within each patients
  electronic record with this data in a special
  portion of the chart so that it can be aggregated
  manipulated to draw relevant conclusions
• Retained in accordance with our Retention and
  Storage of Records Policy securely destroyed
  afterwards

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• Amanda Brennan, B.A., LL.B.
• Mount Sinai Hospital,
• Corporate Privacy Officer Freedom of
  Information Coordinator
• 416-586-4800 ext. 2101
• abrennan_at_mtsinai.on.ca