We care about your privacy at Manitoulin Health Centre (MHC). When it comes to using, collecting, and disclosing your personal health information, we follow the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA) to ensure that your information is kept private, confidential, and secure. There are times when the law wants or allows us to give out the information to others. Please be assured that your personal health information is shared in the health system only when it is necessary to provide care for you. Manitoulin Health Centre takes the necessary steps to protect your personal health information – it is our commitment to our patients.
Manitoulin Health Centre uses an inter-professional team approach to care for patients while they are in the hospital. Along with your physician, nursing staff, and clerical support, this team may include: a dietitian, physiotherapist, physiotherapy aide, pharmacist or pharmacy technician, lab technologist, radiologist technicians, members of the management team, and other staff and affiliates, as required. The inter-professional team approach aligns with our Mission, Vision and Strategic direction to enable us to provide support and review your care to ensure we are delivering the right care, by the right provider, at the right time, with a focus on quality, safety, and effectiveness.
The Personal Health Information Protection act, 2004 (PHIPA) is based on 10 privacy principles:
Accountability for Personal Health Information
Before or at the time personal health information is collected, Manitoulin Health Centre informs individuals of the purposes for which the information is to be used. The Act allows the use of notices to bring the purposes of collection, use, and disclosure to the attention of patients.
Question: Who can look at your personal health information?
Answer: Doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals, who are treating you and/or helping with your care, can look at and use your personal health information whether the treatment takes place at Manitoulin Health Centre or somewhere else. For example, our MHC physicians can ask a specialist in Sudbury to look at your chart to review what treatments and tests you have had and to get advice on a plan of care for you.
Question: Can you ask that your personal health information not be shared?
Answer: You can ask us not to share some or all of your personal health information with certain people. For example, you can ask us not to share the notes made by your social worker with your family physician.
Question: Can you ask to correct the personal health information that we have about you?
Answer: You can ask to have your personal health information corrected as appropriate. For example, we can correct your date of birth. However, we cannot correct an opinion or an observation made by a health care professional in good faith about a patient.
Question: Why do we use and disclose personal health information?
Answer: We use and disclose your personal health information to:
Unless you clearly tell us not to, the provincial privacy laws allow us to use and disclose your personal health information for the reasons mentioned above. In these cases, clear rules restrict how we use your information.
Question: How do we protect your personal health information?
Answer: To protect your privacy, we have policies and guidelines that employees, medical staff, volunteers, and others have to follow. You can ask us to provide a copy to you.
Question: Can my family member or friend have access to my personal health information?
Answer: Manitoulin Health Centre may only disclose personal health information of a patient to a family member or friend if the patient or substitute decision-maker provides consent. The family member or friend may be asked to verify their identity when requesting health information of a patient.
The hospital may disclose the following general information about a patient, as long as the patient is asked at the first reasonable opportunity and does not object:
Question: Who can you contact if you feel the rules about your privacy have been broken?
Answer: You can contact the Privacy Officer of Manitoulin Health Centre by calling (705) 368-2300 Ext 2516.
You can also make a complaint to the Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) by calling 1-800-387-0073, for any action taken after November 2004. For more information, please visit the IPC website at www.ipc.on.ca.
Welcome to Manitoulin Health Centre’s (MHC) Request for Medical Records (Personal Health Information) web page.
Personal health information is any verbal, written or electronic information about you, your health or health care history. This includes your name, date of birth, address, phone number and OHIP number. It also includes tests, treatment and care information or personal and family information that you or your family/substitute decision-maker has told your doctor or other people involved in your care.
You can ask to look at your record(s) or request copies of your personal health information. A fee may apply.
You can make a request by completing the following form and mailing it with an original signature to:
Manitoulin Health Centre
Health Records Department
11 Meredith Street
P.0. Box 640
Little Current, ON P0P 1K0