A message to our health care practitioners - Ontario

As health care practitioners you likely considered your Fiduciary Duty to your patients, however, as health information custodians, have you ever thought about, yet alone considered, your Fiduciary Duty to those patients health information you have been granted custodianship over?

If you have not informed your patients of all those who are considered to be “health information custodians”, you may be in breach of your Fiduciary Duty to your patients with respect to his or her personal health information while operating as a health informartion custodian.

By failing to inform Patients of the Personal Health Information Protection Act, and those persons who are recognized as health information custodians in it, you may be complicit in luring your patients into a false sense of security as they unknowingly and unwittingly give his or her implied consent to allow a College, the Minister or an evaluator as defined under the Health Care Consent Act access to their personal health information for any reason they choose, and without need of a first party complaint or a warrant.

Failing to provide your patient the list of all who may have access to the patient’s health information found under Section 3 of the Personal Health Information Protection Act, causes the patient to be unable to respond accoringingly, which may include the patient withdrawing his or her consent in writing from these Government agents, under Section 19 of the Personal Health Information Protection Act.

Honestly, as a patient, I say, in my own right and to make it clear, no College, minister of the Crown nor evaluator has any business in my business and they can go mind their own business.

Upon being made aware, of your capacity of health information custodian, any failure to inform your patients going forward, may be deemed as a breach of your Fiduciary obligation to your patients as their trusted health information custodian and may cause you to be held personally liable.

I, respectfully demand that you take steps accordingly to remedy this issue and begin immediately informing all your patients of who may access their information and what steps they may take to limit or provide good reason why you will not.

Should you fail to take steps towards resolving this defect, your actions can and may be used against you. Once a person has been made aware that perceived good intentions are causing harm, failure to rectify can and may be seen as acting in bad faith going forward.

For Information Purposes Only:

This blank template is being attached as an example which any reasonable health care practitioner operating as a health care custodian may wish to review and consider employing within his or her own practice. It is further suggested that you may wish to consult a registered legal practitioner to verify the information being shared with you herein.

Thank you genuinely for your time, and I hope this information is enlightening and may go towards you being better able to serve your patients as both a health care practitioner and as a health information custodian.