Amendments to the Personal Health Information Act in Effect
January 06, 2022
The Personal Health Information Act (PHIA) and its regulations establish the rules governing the collection, use, disclosure, retention, destruction, and protection of personal health information in Manitoba.
PHIA was amended to:
- Set out when trustees may disregard requests for access to personal health information or consider such requests to be abandoned.
- Explicitly state that public health information not collected for employment purposes cannot be used for that purpose without the employee's expressed consent.
- Introduce a streamlined approval process for research proposals by establishing a new committee (the health research privacy committee) to approve all health research proposals that require personal health information from a trustee. Proposals will also be approved by an ethics committee to be established by Research Manitoba.
- Authorize the Ombudsman to disclose information to prevent or lessen the risk of serious harm to any person's health or safety.
Manitoba Health and Seniors Care has put together the following Q&A and guidance documents:
Guideline on Limited Authority to Make a Determination that a Request for Access Has Been Abandoned
Guideline on Limited Authority to Disregard Certain Requests for Access