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Rob Ford case leak prompts province to improve patient privacy

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The government of Ontario wants to improve privacy and accountability in the health care system.
Ontario’s health minister Eric Hoskins says they will introduce new measures to protect personal health information of patients, to put and end to privacy breaches like the alleged violation of former mayor Rob Ford’s medical records. To discourage “snooping” of patient files, amendments will be made to the Personal Health Information Protection act, that if passed will strengthen rules and make it easier to prosecute offences.
The Liberals will make it mandatory to report privacy breaches to the information and privacy commissioner. A 6 month deadline to prosecute offences will be removed and fines doubled from $50,000 to $100,000 for individuals and $250,000 to $500,000 for the organization.
Hoskins told a news conference, “Patients across Ontario deserve to know that their personal health information is being protected.”
“My expectations for all health providers who hold personal information about their patients is that they will go above and beyond to protect that information. But sometimes, breaches do occur, and that’s completely unacceptable.”
“By mandating that all privacy breaches are reported to the Information and Privacy Commissioner, the individual health-care provider and indeed the whole system will be able to benefit from his investigation, and his recommendations.”
The legislation will also re-introduce protections to electronic information. The Liberals first introduced the Electronic Personal Health Information Protection Act in 2013 to ensure a patient’s file remains private.