On May 2, 2020, Ontario’s Minister of Health proposed making some changes to clarify reporting obligations of health information custodians and also create rules with respect to Ontario Health and Electronic Health Records. Interested individuals may provide written comments regarding the proposed regulation between May 2, 2020, and July 1, 2020.
More specifically, proposed changes regarding reporting obligations, Ontario Health and the Electronic Health Record are set out below:
Reporting obligations
The proposed regulation would amend Ontario Regulation 329/04 (PHIPA Regulation) under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA) to clarify that health information custodians must notify the Information and Privacy Commissioner of an incident where personal health information is suspected to be stolen, lost or used, and/or disclosed without authority at the first reasonable opportunity.
Ontario Health and the Electronic Health Record
As you may recall, the Connecting Care Act, 2019 came into force on April 18, 2019, and created Ontario Health. You may also recall that Part V.1 of PHIPA has not yet come into force. Some proposed regulations have been created that would do several things, some of which include:
- Establish that Ontario Health would develop and maintain Electronic Health Records
- Prescribe data elements that are used to identify individuals when a health care provider collects personal health information from an Electronic Health Record to provide care
- Set out requirements with respect to the contents of required notices
- Make further rules regarding consent directives, such as putting into place and complying with practices and procedures for the purposes of managing consent directives
Those who are interested in commenting on these proposed changes may do so by July 1, 2020.
- Recent proposal for an American federal privacy law - April 19, 2024
- Bill 149 receives royal assent March 21, 2024 - April 1, 2024
- Reasonable expectation of privacy in Internet Protocol (IP) addresses - March 26, 2024