At Makums Home Health Inc., protecting your privacy is a core commitment to treating you with dignity and respect. At Makums Home Health Inc we collect, use, disclose, and retain your personal health information (PHI) for the sole purpose of providing you with high-quality healthcare services. Our consent processes describe how we use or share your PHI and can be reviewed or modified by patients/clients at any time. We also take significant measures to protect your PHI from theft, loss, and unauthorized use/ disclosure. In terms of your health care records, we retain, provide access to, correct, and destroy records in accordance with existing contractual and legal requirements. Personal health information is only retained for as long as is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected. When we no longer are required to retain the information, we will destroy, erase, or de-identify the information. Makums Home Health Inc. employees can expect the same confidentiality and privacy of their personal information as our clients and patients.
Cookies
Like the majority of websites, www.makumshomehealth.ca uses ‘cookies’. These cookies are used to store information including visitors’ preferences, and the pages on the website that the visitor accessed or visited. The information is used to optimize the users’ experience by customizing our web page content based on visitors’ browser type and/or other information.
Our website may contain external links to news websites or research. Once users have decided to explore these links to third-party websites, the privacy policy will not apply as those websites are completely independent to Makums Home Health Inc. As such, Makums Home Health Inc. will not be held accountable for any information collected on those websites.
Security
Makums Home Health Inc. considers your health information extremely confidential and has put many safeguards in place to ensure its security. Our security measures strive to adhere to (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA)), PIPEDA, and PHIPA requirements in all aspects of the work we do for our clients and patients.
Makums Home Health Inc. only permits employees who are either providing health care or assisting with the plan of care to have access to personal health information, as necessary to perform the individual’s functions and duties. Only staff who have a need to know are granted access to personal health information. Information is found in many different formats at Makums Home Health Inc, due to the nature of our work. Your information may be stored electronically, in paper files, and in the knowledge of our staff.
Makums Home Health Inc. employees are required to sign an individual confidentiality and privacy commitment and to undergo comprehensive privacy education and training. Employees who violate our Privacy Commitment will be subject to disciplinary action which depending on severity may even lead to charges, arrest, and termination.
Disclosure of personal information
Makums Home Health Inc. will not disclose personal information to any external organization unless we have previously informed the client in disclosures or agreements, have been authorized by the client, or are required to do so by law. In rare cases, we may be required by law or other lawful authorities to release personal information, such as when we receive a court order or subpoena. In such cases, Makums Home Health Inc. will verify the lawful authority prior to releasing the information and will endeavor to release only what is necessary for the stated purpose of the request.
We sometimes use third-party service providers, including the financial institution processing payments, and satisfaction survey providers (at your option).
Your right to access your personal information
If you would like to see your personal information/health files at any time, you may do so by putting your request in writing and forwarding it to our office. As your file may contain words that are particular to the medical and nursing community, we will invite you to meet with one of our nurse managers when you review your file, so that they may be available to answer any of your questions. Similarly, you may request a copy of your file, in part or in whole, if required, by submitting a request in writing.
Please note that we may need to collect additional personal information to validate the identity and authority of the individual making the access request. This is to ensure that only individuals authorized to access your information can do so. This additional information will only be used for the purpose of validating the information request.
A reasonable fee may be charged for retrieval and copying of records, based on the nature of the request. Please contact us if you have a concern regarding the reasonableness of the fee.