Diane McLeod-McKay, the information and privacy commissioner (IPC) for Yukon, has created a resource to help small custodians navigate the territory’s Health and Information Privacy and Management Act (HIPMA).
“Custodian” in this context refers to an authorized person who may collect, use and disclose personal health information only in accordance with legislation.
Custodians include most health care providers, the Department of Health and Social Services and the Yukon Emergency Medical Services program. The term also refers to operators of hospitals and health facilities, the Kwanlin Dün First Nation Health Centre, and the Child Development Centre.
HIPMA came into effect in 2016. McLeod-McKay said in a release that she developed the new resource to help custodians understand the legislation.
“Since HIPMA came into force in 2016, we have heard from many smaller custodians who have described their challenges in understanding the legislation and fulfilling its requirements,” said McLeod-McKay.
“We know that HIPMA may appear overwhelming, but its obligations are relatively straightforward and intuitive, and can easily be worked into an organization’s operations, no matter how small.”
In McLeod-McKay’s 2019 Annual Report, she set a goal to increase the awareness of HIPMA and to create materials to assist custodians – especially in smaller operations.
“To this end, my office has developed this tool kit to address many of the common questions and concerns we receive from smaller custodians with the goal of helping them to understand the provisions of HIPMA, and more importantly, how to implement them meaningfully,” said McLeod-McKay in the release.
“We hope the document will be useful and that organizations may discover they are already meeting many of their duties under HIPMA. We are also interested in hearing from custodians if they have input for improvements to the tool kit.”
The HIPMA Toolkit for Small Custodians can be found on the IPC website, along with several other helpful resources for custodians under HIPMA.
For custodians who have questions or would like to provide feedback about the tool kit, they can contact the IPC office at 867-667-8468.
Contact John Tonin at john.tonin@yukon-news.com