Your Privacy

Health Information Privacy Statement

Since November 1, 2004, the provincial legislation known as the Personal Health Information Act, 2004 (PHIPA) has been in force to protect the privacy of your personal health information. As a prescribed person under PHIPA, CCN is authorized to collect, use, and disclose (to those authorized) personal health information about you and other cardiac patients in order to maintain a Registry and facilitate and improve cardiac care in Ontario.

Collection of Personal Health Information

As a prescribed person under PHIPA, CCN collects personal health information about cardiac patients via health information custodians in its hospitals. Examples of elements of personal health information that may be collected at these hospitals include your name, date of birth, address, health history, and other information collected during cardiac centre visits.

Uses and Disclosures of Personal Health Information

As a prescribed person under PHIPA, CCN uses and discloses personal health information for a number of different activities, including:

• Assisting cardiac care providers to coordinate access to care for cardiac patients
• Managing data for analysis by hospitals
• Reporting information about Ontario's cardiac care system and providing advice about cardiac care planning to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care

CCN works to protect your personal health information from theft and loss, as well as unauthorized access, copying, modification, use, disclosure and disposal. CCN has a comprehensive privacy and security policy (see below) that guides all CCN activities, conduct audits to monitor compliance with CCN privacy and security policies, train all CCN employees and agents in privacy protection, and endeavour to make our activities to protect privacy transparent.

Please click here for CCN’s Privacy and Security Policy.

Please click here for a patient information brochure.

How to Contact CCN

For more information about our privacy protection practices, or to register a complaint regarding CCN’s compliance with its privacy and security program, please contact CCN’s Privacy Officer.

For more information about provincial privacy initiatives, or to register a complaint regarding CCN’s compliance with PHIPA, please contact the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC). The IPC will not respond to communications regarding CCN’s compliance with its own policies. 

Review of CCN’s Privacy and Security Program by the IPC

Every three years, CCN and other prescribed persons are required to submit information about their privacy and security policies, procedures, and practices to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC) for approval. The operation of CCN and other prescribed persons is conditional on these policies being approved by the IPC. The IPC approved CCN for a three year period in October, 2014.

Please click here for CCN’s 2014 report to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

Please click here for the IPC’s letter approving CCN’s privacy and security policies and procedures.

Privacy Impact Assessment

A privacy impact assessment is a review of a prescribed person’s privacy and security program by an accredited third party. A privacy consultant completed a privacy impact assessment for CCN in 2013, and found that CCN has a “solid track record” of complying with privacy principles. After receiving comments from the IPC regarding the report of the privacy consultant, all of the recommendations made in the privacy impact assessment were adopted and a final review was completed by CCN’s legal counsel.   

Data Holdings

CCN’s primary data holding is the Wait Times Information System (WTIS-CCN), which holds personal health information of patients who have undergone select advanced adult cardiac procedures in the province of Ontario. These procedures are cardiac catheterization, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI, also known as angioplasty), cardiac surgery (also known as coronary artery bypass graft surgery or CABG), and procedures related to certain heart rhythm devices such as implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs).

Personal health information in WTIS-CCN is used to develop the provincial cardiac procedure waiting list. Additionally, it is used by hospitals to aid in the planning and delivery of health care.