Question

The Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) relies on personal health information provided to their home care nurses from the patients as well as their primary care physicians, specialists, or case managers. Briefly explain what PHIPA outlines regarding the use of this patient information. What could and couldn't they use, share, disclose, etc.? Point form is fine for your response.

Answer 1

PHIPA or Personal Health Information Protection Act enumerates a set of rules that defines the collections, use, and sharing of personal health information of a patient. It is in Ontario legislation and established in 2004. A few points are

• PHIPA outlines that the custodian must obtain consent from the individual to collect, use, and share personal health insurance. This, consent can be expressed or implied. Thus, the consent must be knowledgeable, must be voluntary, related to information given in the question, and must be provided by the individual.
• The patient can also withhold or refuse to provide information or certain sections of it. If a person is not competent(i.e extremely ill), then the healthcare team can contact the substitute decision-makers like relatives, family to obtain the agreement on behalf of the patient
• This consent must include, what information needs to be a collection, why it is collected, who will get access to it, how would it be used, potential consequences of not giving the information, etc.
• This must be in a written policy regarding the control and of this information and how it would be used. However, the consent can be both oral or written
• The patient must understand where all the information would be accessed, like for billing and other administrative purposes, etc.
• Organizations have limitations on the types of PHI that can be collected, or shared. Plus, it must also be not sold except in the case of public health activities, or research.
• There are also remedies for breach in legislation in this regard

Thus, every information collected, used or shared must have proper consent. It can be used for marketing purpose or crowdfunding but only with the person's consent.