Privacy Statement
Dale Brain Injury Services and our staff are bound by law and ethics to safeguard your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal information.
This includes:
- Collecting only the information that may be necessary for your care.
- Keeping accurate and up-to-date records.
- Safeguarding the personal health records in our possession.
- Sharing information with other health care providers and organizations on a “need to know” basis where required for your health care.
- Disclosing information to third parties who are not health information custodians only with your expressed consent or when necessary for legal reasons.
- Retaining/destroying records in accordance with the law.
Commitment to Privacy
Protecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal information has always been an important aspect of Dale Brain Injury Services’ (DBIS) operations. The appropriate collection, use and disclosure of participants’ personal health information is fundamental to our day to day operations and to your care.
We strive to provide you with excellent care and service, which includes developing appropriate services and treating your personal health information with respect. Each member and employee of our organization must abide by our commitment to privacy in handling of personal information.
Applicability of Privacy Policy
Our privacy policy informs you of our commitment to privacy and tells you the ways we ensure that your privacy is protected. Our privacy policy protects the participants’ personal health information that is in our possession and control.
What is Personal Health Information?
Personal health information means identifying information about an individual relating to their physical or mental health (including medical history), the providing of health care to the individual, payments or eligibility for health care, organ and tissue donation, and health number.
The 10 Principles of Privacy
Our Privacy Policy reflects our compliance with fair information practices, applicable laws and standards of practice.
1. Accountability
We take our commitment to securing your privacy very seriously. Each employee and member of our organization is responsible for the personal information under his/her control. Our employees are informed about the importance of privacy and receive information periodically to update them about our Privacy Policy and related issues.
2. Identifying Purposes: Why We Collect Information
We ask you for information to establish a relationship and serve your needs. We obtain most of our information about you directly from you, or from other health practitioners whom you have seen and authorized to disclose to us. You are entitled to know how we use your information. We will limit the information we collect to what we need for those purposes, and we will use it only for those purposes. We will obtain your consent if we wish to use your information for any other purpose.
3. Consent
You have the right to determine how your personal health information is used and disclosed. For most health care purposes, your consent is implied as a result of your consent to treatment and / or request for our support and services. In some circumstances, your expressed or sometimes written consent may be required.
4. Limiting Collection
We collect information by fair and lawful means and collect only that information which may be necessary for purposes related to the provision of services.
5. Limiting Use, Disclosure and Retention
The information we request from you is used for the purposes defined. We will seek your consent before using the information for additional purposes.
Under no circumstances do we sell participant lists or other personal information to third parties. There are some types of disclosure of your personal health information that may occur as part of our services and our routine obligations and/or administration management. This includes consultants and suppliers to the organization, on the understanding that they abide by our Privacy Policy and only to the extent necessary to allow them to provide services that support our organization.
We will retain your information only for the time it is required for the purposes we describe and once your personal information is no longer required, it will be destroyed. However due to our on-going exposure to potential claims, some information is kept for a longer period.
6. Accuracy
We endeavor to ensure that all decisions involving your personal information are based upon accurate and timely information. While we will do our best to base our decisions on accurate information, we rely on you to disclose all material information and to inform us of any relevant changes.
7. Safeguards: Protecting Your Information
We protect your information with appropriate safeguards and security measures. DBIS maintains personal information in a combination of paper and electronic files. Recent paper records concerning individuals’ personal information are stored in files kept onsite at our office. Older files/records may be stored offsite.
Access to personal information will be authorized only to the appropriate employees associated with DBIS, other agents who require access in the performance of their duties, and to those otherwise authorized by law.
We provide information to health care providers acting on your behalf, on the understanding that they are also bound by law and ethics to safeguard your privacy. Other organizations and agents must agree to abide by our Privacy Policy and may be asked to sign contracts to that effect. We will give them only the information necessary to perform the services for which they are engaged, and will require that they not store, use or disclose the information for purposes other than to carry out those services.
Our computer systems are password-secured and constructed in such a way that only authorized individuals can access secure systems and databases.
If you send us an e-mail message that includes personal information, such as your name included in the “address”, we will use that information to respond to your inquiry. Please remember that e-mail is not necessarily secure against interception. If your communication is very sensitive, you should not send it electronically unless the e-mail is encrypted or your browser indicates that the access is secure.
8. Openness: Keeping You Informed
DBIS has utilized this plain language Privacy Policy to keep you informed. Please notify a DBIS staff member if you would like a copy.
If you have any additional questions or concerns about privacy, we invite you to contact us and we will address your concerns to the best of our ability.
9. Access and Correction
With limited exceptions, we will give you access to the information we retain about you within a reasonable time, upon presentation of a written request and satisfactory identification.
We may have to charge you a fee for this service and, if so, we will give you notice in advance of processing your request.
If you find errors of fact in your personal health information, please notify us as soon as possible and we will make the appropriate corrections. We are not required to correct information relating to clinical observations or opinions made in good faith. You have a right to append a short statement of disagreement to your record if we refuse to make a requested change.
If we deny your request for access to your personal information, we will advise you in writing of the reason for the refusal and you may then challenge our decision.
10. Challenging Compliance
We encourage you to contact us with any questions or concerns you might have about your privacy or our Privacy Policy. We will investigate and respond to your concerns about any aspect of our handling of your information. If after contacting us, you feel that your concerns have not been addressed to your satisfaction, we will provide information on other complaint procedures that may be available to you.
You can reach us at:
Dale Brain Injury Services Inc.
345 Saskatoon Street
London, ON N5W 4R4
Tel: 519-668-0023
Fax: 519-668-6783
e-mail: contact@daleservices.on.ca
