Client Privacy and Confidentiality Statement

 

What is personal information? 

Personal information means information about an identifiable individual.  This includes, but is not limited to, an individual’s name, contact information, age, marital or family status, financial information, identifying numbers. 

 

What is personal health information? 

Personal health information is information collected by medical personnel in the clinic which relates to the health care you access. 

 

What personal and personal health information do we collect? 

Dawn Centre commits to collecting the minimal amount of information from you that’s reasonably required to provide care. As a non-profit, we may also collect general statistical information from you to support our ability to provide ongoing operations. 

 

How do we use and store the personal and personal health information we collect?

That information is used and disclosed within your circle of care to provide quality care to you. If you don’t want us to collect, use, or share any information, please let us know. 

 

We may transfer your personal or personal health information to service providers in the course of our administrative procedures for information storage or processing. Where information is transferred to a service provider for processing, we require the service provider demonstrate a commitment to compliance with privacy and confidentiality legislation and restrict use of such information to the provision of services to us. The service providers we rely on holds your information outside of Canada. Be advised that in certain circumstances we are required by law to disclose certain personal information to third parties. 

 

How do we safeguard confidential information? 

We make every reasonable effort to ensure that personal information is accurate and complete. We rely on individuals to notify us if there is a change to their personal information that may affect their relationship with our organization. If you are aware of an error in our information about you, please let us know and we will correct it on request wherever possible.  In some cases, we may ask for a written request for correction. 

   

We protect personal and personal health information in a manner appropriate for the sensitivity of the information.  We make every reasonable effort to prevent any loss, misuse, disclosure or modification of personal and personal health information, as well as any unauthorized access to this information, in accordance with applicable provincial and federal legislation and best practice standards. 

 

We use appropriate security measures when destroying personal or personal health information, including shredding paper records, and permanently deleting electronic records using the appropriate sanitation methods depending on the cloud-based encrypted platforms used in accordance with the record retention and destruction policy and requirements. The Privacy Contact designated by Dawn Centre will record the security measures employed on a Certificate of Media Sanitation form. 

 

Questions and complaints:

You are welcome to contact us if you have any questions or concerns about how we collect, store, use, or disclose your personal information. You may also contact us if you would like to access or correct any personal information we have about you. 

 

For any concerns about the privacy and confidentiality policies or procedures of the organization, contact Birgit Pellizzari, Executive Director of Dawn Centre at 519-620-0204  

 

For more general information and concerns related to your privacy, you may contact the Office of the information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario by visiting https://www.ipc.on.ca/en or calling 1-800-387-0073.