Doctors Nova Scotia concerned about proposed changes to health information law
CBC
The organization that represents more than 3,500 physicians, medical students and residents in Nova Scotia is concerned with provisions in legislation introduced by the minister of finance on March 5 as part of the budget process.
Doctors Nova Scotia said clauses in the Financial Measures Act to amend the Personal Health Information Act would grant the minister of health and her department expanded access to the health records of Nova Scotians.
"The way that the legislation is written is quite broad and it's not entirely clear the information they might be accessing," Dr. Colin Audain, president of Doctors Nova Scotia, told CBC Radio's Information Morning on Thursday.
The second last clause in the 35-page bill would amend the law governing health records by including an additional obligation for doctors and other care providers "to disclose personal health information to the minister or a person acting on behalf of the minister for the purposes of planning and management of the health system, resource allocation and creating or maintaining electronic health record programs and services."
Audain said Health Department officials have told his organization that the purpose is to allow patients to access their own records through the YourHealthNS app the province launched last November.
The department also said it wants to collect aggregate information in order to better plan services or reallocate resources.
"As far as we know, the information that they're looking for right now is fairly narrow, and it includes things like the date of a visit, the provider's name, the reason for the visit and the results of diagnostic imaging, blood and other lab tests," said Audain.
"But I think what we're concerned about is the broad nature of the legislation, and the fact that if there were other information, beyond what's currently being looked at in the app, that it could compromise the therapeutic relationship between doctors and their patients."
Doctors Nova Scotia plans to call on the government to modify the proposed law to restrict the information that can be passed on to the minister and the department when the bill moves from the floor of the House to the Law Amendments Committee.
That could happen as early as Monday.
But Health Minister Michelle Thompson doesn't believe the clause needs to be changed, nor does she think people should be concerned about the kind of information she and future health ministers will be able to access.
"The information that people share with their physician is not the information that's going to be collected by government," Thompson told CBC News. "There's no need for us to know, at an individual level, what is discussed or anything like that with physicians. That's not the point.
"We're not interested in individual information, we're interested in that big number that tells us how many people are utilizing and moving through the system at any given time."
Michael Vandell has been re-elected as chief of Deh Gáh Got’ı̨ę First Nation in N.W.T., defeating former Dehcho MLA Ronald Bonnetrouge.
A Canadian military counter-intelligence operative, accused of passing sensitive information to a foreign entity, was having conversations with a representative of Ukraine, CBC News has learned.
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team has been called in to investigate an incident at the Dalhousie LRT station in which a Calgary police officer shot a man who was “acting erratically and carrying a knife.”
Around 40 people have been temporarily displaced after a building fire in O’Leary, in P.E.I.'s Prince County.
The price of the benchmark North American crude blend known as West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, slid to a four-year low on Tuesday, dipping to $55 US a barrel after starting the year off around $80.
The young man accused of being impaired and behind the wheel at the time he slammed into a Toronto family’s van, killing three children, has pleaded guilty in the case.
Gavin McKenna knew the haters would be ready to pounce.
Despite a deal to push government bills through their final stages before the House of Commons rose last Thursday, two pieces of priority budget and border legislation, C-4 and C-12, can't become law until at least February.
Skate Canada says it will no longer host major events in Alberta following a review of the province's legislation on the participation of transgender athletes in women's sport.
A surge of influenza among school-aged kids is linked to the recent deaths of multiple Ontario children, prompting calls for Canadian families to get vaccinated as medical experts brace for a worsening wave of infections across all age groups.
A London family doctor is not allowed to practice medicine for 10 months after being found guilty of professional misconduct.
Nearly three weeks after it started, the most complex fire in Toronto's history is finally out, but residents of two buildings in Thorncliffe Park still don't know if they'll be back home for the holidays.
The family of a man with schizophrenia charged with two counts of attempted murder is bracing for an aspect of the criminal justice system that is almost inevitable.