Correction of Personal Health Information Records

• Author: Halyna N. Perun; Michael Orr; Fannie Dimitriadis
• Pages: 543-556

A. RIGHT OF CORRECTION: BACKGROUND

Under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004,1a patient has a

right to require that a record of inaccurate or incomplete personal health infor-

mation about him- or herself be corrected or amended, subject to some specif-

ic exceptions.2The subject matter of the correction may be major or minor in

nature: the right extends equally to matters large and small, provided that it is

significant enough to affect the purpose for which the custodian uses the infor-

mation.3The provision of this right is set out as one of the purposes of the Act.4

Where the patient has a substitute decision-maker authorized to act on his or

her behalf under PHIPA, the substitute decision-maker may take the steps to

correct the patient’s record on behalf of the patient.5

The rules for correction in PHIPA build on Principle 9 of the CSA Privacy

Code, incorporated in Schedule 1 of the Personal Information Protection and Elec-

tronic Documents Act,6which specifies that “an individual shall be able to chal-

543

1 S.O. 2004, c. 3, Sch. A [PHIPA].

2Ibid., s. 55(1).

3Ibid., s. 55(8).

4Ibid., s. 1(c).

5Ibid., s. 25(1). See Chapter 6, Section D.

6 S.C. 2000, c. 5. [PIPEDA].

14 Correction of Personal

Health Information

Records