$1.13 million Health Privacy Unit unveiled by GNWT
Body created to oversee implementation of the Health Privacy Act
Randi Beers
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, October 15, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Department of Health and Social Services is spending $1.13 million over the next three years to create and operate a new Health Privacy Unit.
The unit will be staffed by four people who will be in charge of implementing the Health Privacy Act, which the legislative assembly passed in March.
The new act lays out under what circumstances department employees are allowed to collect and share personal health information about patients.
The legislation was inspired by the territory's move toward electronic medical records that began in 2005, which heightened privacy concerns in the NWT.
Natasha Brotherston became the department's first ever senior health privacy officer in September.
She will be the Health Privacy Unit's new head and said her team's responsibilities will include writing a framework for health privacy, educating health department staff and creating a better relationship between the department and the information and privacy commissioner.
"We want to improve relations with (the privacy commissioner) and we want to promote a culture of health privacy throughout our health system," she explained.
"And we want to engage the public - what does a culture of health privacy mean? - We want patients to trust their health-care providers and facilities."
The department is in the process of creating another position as well - a chief privacy officer. Two other existing positions will also report to the Health Privacy Unit from now on.
Brotherston told Yellowknifer she would like to see her staff complete a privacy framework and start fully enforcing the act by summer or fall 2015.
According to spokesperson Damien Healy, the department will spend $323,000 annually to support the unit.
Before the legislative assembly passed the Health Privacy Act, the department relied on a more generic Information and Protection of Privacy Act to provide a framework for how patient health information can be collected.
The issue of health privacy started gaining traction after the department began bringing health-care facilities across the territory online to a $2-million centralized electronic medical records database in 2005.
NWT Information and Privacy Commissioner Elaine Keenan Bengts highlighted this in her 2012-2013 annual report, writing "it has definitely been the year of health privacy concerns."
Seven out of the 16 new files the commissioner opened last year had to do with health information. She described an instance where an audit found employees of the Beaufort Delta Health and Social Services Authority used generic usernames and passwords to access data and three cases of misdirected faxes.
Keenan Bengts also wrote in her report she was pleased to see the Health Privacy Act legislation was under development and alerted the legislative assembly's Standing Committee on Government Operations that she plans to submit a proposal for more money for her office to "take on the inevitable increase in workload brought about by the implementation of the act."
The standing committee report on its review of the Information and Privacy Commissioner's annual report states the committee is supportive of the commissioner's proposal "in principle."
Keenan Bengts was not available to comment on the new legislation or her proposal for extra funding by press time.
