Privacy Policy

We will take steps to ensure that anyone who performs services on behalf of Neighbourhood Care respects your privacy rights and only uses or discloses your personal health information for permitted purposes.

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

• Provide quality care to you
• Provide care reminders to you
• Coordinate your care with your other health care providers including through shared electronic health information systems such as local, regional and provincial programs to provide you quality patient care
• To plan, evaluate and monitor the services we provide to you
• For research, quality improvement activities (such as sending patient experience surveys) and statistical analysis of data purposes
• For any other purpose that may be identified to you before or at the time the information is collected
• To educate our staff
• Respond to or initiate proceedings
• Conduct research (subject to certain rules)
• Update you of upcoming events, activities and programs
• Comply with legal and regulatory requirements
• Fulfill other purposes permitted or required by law

In this Privacy Notice, personally identifiable information about you will be referred to as “Personal Information”. We may collect, use or disclose Personal Information as set out below and as otherwise required or permitted by law. For example, we may collect your name, gender, date of birth, address, email address, phone number, payment card information, employer and employment status, call recordings, general health concerns, health card number, physician, diagnosis, referrals, record of your visits, the care and support you received during those visits, treatment plans and other relevant information as required. Personal Information may be collected, used and disclosed before, during and after our Neighbourhood Care visit.

Health Care Services: In general, we may collect use and disclose your personal information for the purposes of assessment, planning, treatment or delivering other health-related services. We may collect personal information from you directly, or from your employer, insurer or from other third parties if you provide us with consent to do so or if we are authorized to do so by law. We will only collect the personal information we need to provide you with services.

In the course of providing care services, your personal information may be shared with health information custodians involved in your care (e.g. another physician or health care practitioner, an allied professional or member of your clinical care team) or with referral sources (e.g., your insurer, applicable provincial health authority or applicable workers compensation provider) unless instructed otherwise by you.

We may also share your personal information for the purposes of contacting your family or a potential substitute decision maker.

If you do not wish your personal health information to be used or shared, you have the right to refuse to provide all or part of the information to us at the time we request the information or anytime afterwards.

We may not be able to fulfill your wishes if they impact our ability to deliver quality care to you or if we are legislated to use or disclose the information to which you object. In these cases, we will discuss the impact of your objection with you.

If we find it necessary to disclose your information for purposes other than providing care, we will notify you of the purpose for the disclosure and ask you for consent to disclose the information.

The way we collect your consent may vary depending on the purpose for the consent.

We may collect, use and disclose your personal information for the purposes of facilitating and/or collecting payment for our services or to determine any entitlement to insurance coverage or other benefits.

Neighbourhood Care may conduct or participate in research and analysis in which case your personal information, including personal health information, may be analyzed in de-identified form. The results of this research and analysis will not be disclosed or otherwise published in a manner that could identify an individual. Any additional testing for research or analysis purposes that involves the collection, use or disclosure of information that could identify an individual will involve a separate informed consent process.

We may collect, use and disclose personal information for the purposes of risk management, security or otherwise to improve the quality of Neighbourhood Care, including the evaluation and monitoring of those services.

We may disclose your personal information where required or permitted by law. For example, we may provide your personal information in response to a search warrant or other legally valid inquiry or order. We may also disclose personal information for certain proceedings and to investigate or prevent actual or suspected loss or harm to persons or property.

We may transfer any information we have about you in connection with a proposed or completed merger or sale involving all or part of Neighbourhood Care or as part of a corporate reorganization or other change in corporate control.

Your personal information will be maintained in Canada. We use third parties to provide various services on our behalf. For example, we may use service providers to store our data, authorize and process payments, provide services, record telephone calls, and send email communications. When we transfer personal information, we take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is protected from loss, theft or unauthorized access, use, modification and disclosure.

Neighbourhood Care believes that securing your personal information is a very important part of our job. We have implemented reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards in an effort to protect against loss, theft or unauthorized access, use, copying, modification, disclosure and disposal of personal information in our custody.

In some cases we may share your personal health information with third parties such as vendors, suppliers or providers responsible for administering our programs. These organizations must sign a contract with us to follow privacy and health information practices that are the same as or similar to our own.

Please be aware that even if you have opted out of receiving marketing communications from us, we may still contact you for other purposes. For example, we may contact you to provide newsletters or other communications you have consented to receive, regarding the services we provide to you, or if you contact us with an inquiry.

Your record is our property, but the information belongs to you. With limited exceptions, you have the right to access the health information we hold about you, whether in the health record or elsewhere.

You may ask to see your health record or make a formal written request to see and/or obtain a copy of your health record. We will endeavour to respond to a formal access request within 30 days. If necessary, we will provide written notice of the reason for any time extension and the length of the extension.

We may deny or restrict your access to your health record in very limited circumstances (e.g., if it is reasonable to believe the disclosure would result in a risk of serious harm to you or another person, or if a provincial or federal act prohibits disclosure).

If you believe your health record to be inaccurate or incomplete, you may request that the record be corrected. We will make the correction if you demonstrate that the information is inaccurate or incomplete for the purposes for which the information is being used. We may not correct the record if it was not originally created at Neighbourhood Care and we do not have sufficient knowledge, expertise or authority to correct it; or if the record consists of a professional opinion or observation made in good faith about you. We will, however, note the request for correction and the fact that we did not make any changes based on one of these reasons in the record.

We will provide written notice to third parties who received the incorrect information about the correction, to the extent reasonably possible and if the correction could reasonably be expected to have an impact on your ongoing health care or benefits.

Neighbourhood Care reserves the right to modify or amend this Privacy Notice at any time and for any reason. We will also update this Privacy Policy and our privacy practices to comply with federal and provincial privacy legislation as they may each apply. You may request a copy of the Privacy Notice currently in effect at any time by contacting us.

If you wish for more information, access to your records or you believe that your privacy rights have not been followed as required by law or as explained in this Privacy Notice, you may contact our privacy office at:

• info@neighbourhoodcare.ca
• or for more information contact:
• Information and Privacy Commissioner / Ontario
• 2 Bloor Street East, Suite 1400
• Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8
• 416-326-3333