Personal Information Definition
- Personal information includes information that relates to:
- an individual’s personal characteristics (e.g., gender, age, home address or telephone number, ethnic background);
- health (e.g., health history, health conditions, health services received by them);
- activities and views (e.g., opinions expressed by an individual, an opinion or evaluation of an individual).
- Personal information is different from business information (e.g., an individual’s business address and telephone number). This is not protected by privacy legislation.
Personal Information Collection: Primary Purposes
- Like all health care professionals, we collect, use and disclose personal information in order to serve our clients. The primary purpose for collecting personal information is to provide treatment. For example, we collect information about a client’s health history, including their family history, physical condition, and function in order to help assess what their health needs are, to advise them of their options and then to provide the health care they choose to have.
Personal Information Collection: Related and Secondary Purposes
- Like most organizations, we also collect, use and disclose information for purposes secondary to our primary purposes. The most common examples of our related and secondary purposes are as follows:
- To invoice clients for goods or services that was not paid for at the time, to process credit card payments or to collect unpaid accounts. We review client files and other files for the purpose of ensuring that we provide high quality services, including assessing the performance of our Nurse Practitioners.
External regulators have their own strict privacy obligations. Sometimes these reports include personal information about our clients or other individuals to support the concern (e.g., Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, Information and Privacy Commissioner, Human Rights Commission, College of Registered Nurses, etc.) have the authority to review our files, and interview our NP's as a part of their mandates. In these circumstances, we may consult with professionals (e.g., Lawyers, Accountants) who will investigate the matter and report back to us.
Third Party Insurance
- The cost of services provided by the clinic to clients is sometimes paid for by third parties (e.g., private insurance e billing). These third party payers often have the client’s consent or legislative authority to direct us to collect and disclose to them certain information in order to demonstrate client entitlement to this funding.
- Clients or other individuals we deal with may have questions about our services after receiving them. We retain our client information for a mandatory minimum of ten years after the last contact to enable us to respond to those questions and provide these services.
Personal Information Protection
- We understand the importance of protecting personal information.
- For that reason, We have taken the following steps: Electronic hardware is safe-coded via passwords. Patient information is stored electronically in Med Access Program
Personal Information – Retention & Destruction
- We keep our clients files for 10 years according to our College regulations.
- Any paper files containing personal information are destroyed by confidential shredding. Electronic information is destroyed by deleting it and, when the hardware is discarded, we ensure that the hard drive is physically destroyed.
Any questions?
If you have a concern about the professionalism or competence of our services, we ask that you discuss those concerns with Vaida Health. We can best be reached at vaidahealth.info@gmail.com.
