Privacy

East Toronto Health Partners (ETHP) respects and honours the privacy and confidentiality of the patients and clients it serves. ETHP ensures all its member organizations take appropriate measures to ensure the proper protection and security of patient and client information in accordance with the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) and all other applicable laws.

Data Sharing Agreement

As part of this process, ETHP has established a Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) to govern how personal health information is shared between ETHP members.

See a full copy of the DSA (Download PDF). Highlights from the DSA include:

  • Personal health information will only be collected and shared for the purposes of providing, or assisting in the provision of, patient and client healthcare.
  • Collected information will be limited to only that which is necessary for the purposes.
  • No patient or client personal health information will be accessed, used, modified, copied, destroyed or disclosed to any third party outside of ETHP except to the extent necessary to serve the healthcare needs of the patient or client and with the consent of the patient or client or as otherwise permitted or required by law.
  • Each member of ETHP shall use appropriate administrative, technological and physical safeguards for the storage and handling of patient and client information that ensures its security and confidentiality are maintained in accordance with PHIPA and consistent with good practice in the health sector.
  • All ETHP representatives undergo privacy and security training and are subject to confidentiality agreements.
  • Patients and clients have the right to withhold or withdraw consent, as appropriate.
  • All ETHP participants must adhere to the DSA before any patient or client information is shared with them.

ETHP also has a Privacy Working Group that seeks to ensure privacy compliance and create a governance structure for all ETHP projects, including proper implementation of the DSA. Learn more about the Privacy Working Group. Contact the group at info@ethp.ca.

ETHP’s anchor partners are either health information custodians (HICs) or agents of HICs as defined by the PHIPA, 2004.

Below is a list of ETHP's anchor partners with links to their respective organizational privacy policies. If you have any questions regarding any ETHP partner’s privacy policy, please contact that organization directly using the contact listed in their policy.

*East Toronto Family Practice Network (EasT-FPN) is an association of primary care physicians who are part of ETHP. The individual physicians who are part of the EasT-FPN follow their own individual privacy policies that govern their practice in accordance with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and PHIPA. If your primary care provider is part of the EasT-FPN, please ask them for information about their practices.