Privacy and Client Rights | Somerset West Commun

Privacy and Clients Rights

OUR COMMITMENT TO PRIVACY

To provide the best possible care, we need to collect and use personal health information. Somerset West Community Health Centre is committed to keeping your information safe and confidential. We follow the rules set out in law about collecting, using and disclosing your personal information.

To ensure the protection of your personal information, we have:

Privacy Policies in place
Appointed a Privacy Officer to answer your concerns or inquiries
Set up safeguards in the handling of paper, electronic and verbal personal information.

HOW WE WORK

We will usually collect your personal health information from you for your health record. This information includes your date of birth, contact information, health history, family health history, details of your physical and mental health records, record of your visits, the care and support you received during those visits, results from tests and procedures. We will only collect this information from another source if you give your consent or the law permits us to do so. The Centre’s service providers work in teams to provide you with comprehensive care and service. Information for your best care may be shared among those directly involved with your care.

We collect, use and disclose (meaning share) your health information to:

Treat and care for you
Update you of upcoming events, activities and programs
Coordinate your care with your other health care providers including through shared electronic health information systems and local, regional and provincial programs
Plan, administer and manage our internal operations
To submit info required by funding agencies
To fulfill QI requirements such as evaluations and chart audits
Fulfill other purposes permitted or required by law

Our collection, use and disclosure (sharing) of your personal health information is done in accordance with Ontario law. We are bound by confidentiality. We have to protect your information from loss or theft. If there is a privacy breach, we will inform you (we are required by law to inform you).

We may also collect, use and share your health information in order to talk with other health care providers about your care unless you tell us you do not want us to do so.

You have the right to ask that we not share some or all of your health record with one or more of our team members or ask us not to share your health record with one or more of your external health care providers (such as a specialist). This is known as asking for a “lockbox”. If you would like to know more, please read our Client Lockbox Information Brochure: How to Restrict Access to your Health Record. If you wish to set up a Client Lockbox, please fill out a Client Lockbox Request Form and return it to your service provider.

LIMIT TO CONFIDENTIALITY

Somerset West CHC may report information to third parties, without consent:

Where required by a court through subpoena, administrative agency or other governmental tribunal;
In prevention of imminent harm-Where the Centre believes, upon reasonable grounds, that it is necessary to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of an identifiable person or group;
Potential liability to the Centre- upon the judgement of the Executive Director, client records will be provided to the Centre’s own lawyer, own liability insurer, or an adjuster or lawyer acting on behalf of the Centre’s insurer;
Where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a child is or may be suffering or may have suffered abuse, the suspicion and the information on which it is based shall be reported promptly to the Children’s Aid Society.
Records must be made available upon request to investigators of a regulatory college, or the Coroner.
A provider who forms the opinion that a person is infected with a communicable disease must report to the Medical Officer of Health in accordance with the Health Promotion and Protection Act and Regulations.

ACCESSING YOUR INFORMATION

The Information in your record belongs to you; the physical record itself belongs to the Centre. You are welcome to read or have a copy of your personal health record. You may also request correction of your record. If you wish to access your record, fill out a Request to Access Personal Health Information form and return it to your service provider. An appointment will be set up for you with your service provider to review the records. If you wish to correct or update your record, fill out a Request to correct personal health information form. If you wish to give access or transfer your health files to another provider, fill out an ‘Authorization for release of information’ form and return it to your service provider.

WEBSITE COOKIES AND THE COLLECTION AND USE OF INFORMATION

SWCHC is committed to protecting the privacy of visitors to our website and online properties. We receive, collect and store information you enter on our website or provide us in any other way. The following explains how and why we collect and use information from our website. By using the SWCHC website, you are agreeing with the terms of this website disclaimer and our privacy policies. Your continued use of the website means that you accept any changes.

INFORMATION SHARED WITH US

If you choose to provide SWCHC with personal information through email or other means (e.g. by completing a website form), the information will be used only for the specific purposes for which it has been provided (e.g. to respond to a specific request, volunteer application, etc.), or as otherwise allowed by law.

SERVER LOGS AND DATA STORAGE

We are continuously improving the user experience on our website so that visitors can find the information they want. In order to do this, we need to determine what information visitors access most frequently, and we may do this by tracking statistics such as IP address, browser type, and domain name, and information about a visit such as page visits, length of visit, referring site, page response times, links clicked, documents downloaded and download errors. This information will be used to improve the website, ensure that it provides an optimal web experience for visitors, and ensure that the platform is secure and safe for use.

This data may be stored through Wix.com’s data storage, databases and the general Wix.com applications. They store your data on secure servers behind a firewall.

COOKIES AND TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES

Our website uses third-party services such as Google Analytics, which may place cookies through Wix’s services. Cookies to help improve the content within our site by helping us understand how visitors use our site. A cookie is a text file that is placed in your web browser’s memory by a web server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or to deliver malicious software to your computer.

You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent or you can choose to turn off all cookies. This can be done through your browser’s settings. If you turn cookies off, you may no longer have access to many features provided by our website.

POLICY UPDATES

We reserve the right to modify this privacy policy at any time, so please review it frequently. Changes and clarifications will take effect immediately upon their posting on the website.

QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS

If at any time you have questions or concerns about the treatment of your personal health information or the protection of your privacy within Somerset West CHC, please do not hesitate to raise your concerns with your service provider, or Somerset West CHC’s Privacy Officer at privacyofficer@swchc.on.ca

You may also contact the Information/Privacy Commissioner of Ontario at 1-800-387-0073 or e-mail infor@ipc.on.ca; web: www.ipc.on.ca.

CLIENT RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

You can read our full client rights and responsibilities policy here.

HEALTH PROGRAMS

You can learn all about our health programs here.