Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner
August 12, 2014

Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner – Report AH-2014-001 Released

The Information and Privacy Commissioner, Ed Ring, has released his Report AH-2014-001 under authority of the Personal Health Information Act (PHIA). A summary of the Report is included below.

To view the Report in its entirety, please go to //www.oipc.nl.ca/PHIAaccessreports.htm.

Report: AH-2014-001
Report Date: August 5, 2014
Public Body: Eastern Health

Summary:        The Complainant requested correction of certain personal health information in a clinical report written by an Eastern Health specialist. Specifically, the Complainant claimed that he had not made statements, attributed to him in the report, about his experience with pain relief medications and about his use of marijuana for pain relief. Eastern Health refused to grant the request for correction, and the Complainant therefore filed a complaint with this Office. As this was the first occasion on which the Commissioner had been called upon to address the provisions of the Personal Health Information Act dealing with the correction of personal health information, the Commissioner adopted the framework of analysis used by the Alberta Commissioner in dealing with substantially similar legislative provisions. Applying that analysis, the Commissioner found that the disputed portions of the clinical report consisted of “professional observation” within the meaning of section 62 of the Personal Health Information Act, and concluded that the custodian was not required to correct such information. However, the custodian was required to annotate the record with the correction that had been requested but not made.

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Media contact:
Ed Ring
Information and Privacy Commissioner
709-729-6309
ering@oipc.nl.ca

2014 08 12         1:05 p.m.