Privacy

Privacy is your right to decide “who knows what” about you, and what that person does with this information. At the Chatham-Kent Community Health Centres, we respect your privacy and work hard to meet our obligations related to your privacy rights.

Personal information is anything that identifies you as an individual such as your name, phone number, or birthday. Personal health information is information about your health or health care history – like a test result with your name on it.

The Chatham-Kent Community Health Centres (CKCHC) is a single, multi-site organization that provides medical and non-medical services to help people. All of the employees, volunteers and students of the CKCHC are bound by the law and ethics to keep your personal health information (PHI) private and secure and respect and protect your privacy.

Important Information

We take steps to protect your PHI from theft, loss and unauthorized access, copying, modification, use, disclosure and disposal. We conduct audits and complete investigations to monitor and manage our privacy compliance. We take steps to ensure that everyone who performs services for us protect your information and only use your PHI for the purposes you have consented to.

Collection of Personal Health Information

We, the CKCHC, collect PHI about you, directly from you, or from the person acting on your behalf. Our organization is a Health Information Custodian (as defined in PHIPA) which means that we store your Personal Health Information in our systems. The PHI that we collect may include, your name, date of birth, address, health history, records of your visits to the CKCHC and the care you received during those visits. Occasionally, we collect PHI about you from other sources if we have obtained your consent to do so or if the law permits. Such other sources could include other providers working with us to provide you with care or services (e.g. hospitals, clinics, specialists, etc.)

Uses and Disclosures of Personal Health Information

We may use and disclose personal health information in order to:

• Treat and care for you alongside other providers that are involved in your health care (e.g. hospitals, doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers, etc.)
• Inform funding agencies such as the Ontario’s Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for health system management purposes
• Enable you to participate in our programs and services
• Process, monitor, verify or reimburse claims for payment (e.g. from funding agencies, WSIB, your private insurer)
• Plan, administer and manage our internal operations (e.g. Conduct risk management and quality improvement activities, and Accreditation)
• Guide the planning and administration of our services and operations
• Conduct research
• Teach or educate students
• Compile statistics
• Plan or deliver programs or services
• Comply with legal and regulatory requirements (e.g. infectious disease reporting to Public Health), and
• Fulfill other purposes permitted or required by law. 

Your Choices and Rights

You may request to access, correct your PHI or withdraw your consent for some of the above uses and disclosures by contacting us (subject to legal exceptions) by getting in touch with our Privacy Officer.

How to Contact Us

You may direct any questions or complaints about how we handle personal health information to our Privacy Officer. If you can’t resolve your complaint by working with the Privacy Officer, you may contact the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario for more help.

If you have any questions regarding our privacy protection practices, or to raise a concern you have with our practices, please contact our Privacy Officer at 519-397-5455, ext 110 or privacy@ckchc.ca. You have the right to complain to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario if you think we have violated your rights. The Commissioner can be reached toll free at 1-800-387-0073 or info@ipc.ca.

If you have any privacy and/or security questions or requests about information held provincially, please contact eHealth Ontario Privacy at 1-866-250-1554 or privacy@ehealthontario.on.ca.

If you have any privacy and/or security questions or requests about information held by Clinical Connect, please contact Clinical Connect Privacy at privacy@clinicalconnect.ca.

Contact Information

Heather Carnahan
Privacy Officer

Tel: (519) 397-5455 ext. 110
Email:  privacy@ckchc.ca

Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario

2 Bloor Street East
Suite 1400
Toronto, ON
M4W 1A8

Tel:  1-800-387-0073
Email:  info@ipc.ca