It will now be an offence in Saskatchewan for health-care workers to access someone’s personal health records if they don’t need that information. Steps are also being put in place to deal with abandoned health records.
Changes to the Health Information Protection Act are based on recommendations made by a working group that was struck after thousands of medical records were found in a Regina garbage bin in 2012.
“There are few things more personal than health records, and we recognize that the safeguards on this information require constant review and, when necessary, change,” said Justice Minister Gordon Wyant.
“This new legislation ensures that the organizations responsible for Saskatchewan’s health records are accountable to the people of this province.”
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Health-care providers will need to show that they took all reasonable steps to protect records if those records are found unsecured. It will also be an offence if someone who works for an organization that has personal health information under its control discloses that information.
Former privacy commissioner Gary Dickson called for tougher rules in 2010 after a pharmacist used his home computer to read a former patient’s drug record and again after Dickson had to retrieve files from a dumpster.
With files from The Canadian Press