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Privacy Toolkit

Your Guide to Ontario’s Personal Health Information Protection Act
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Community Mental Health and Addictions Privacy Toolkit

The Community Mental Health and Addictions Privacy Toolkit supports community-based mental health and addiction service providers in meeting the requirements of the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA).
  • Why You Need the Privacy Toolkit
    Since its introduction in 2004, PHIPA has been amended several times to meet the ever-evolving needs of Ontarians. 
    Get A Better Understanding

    As a mental health and addiction service provider, you must stay up-to-date and be familiar with various terms and concepts in order to know what your responsibilities are under the Act.

     

    Know How PHIPA Affects You and/or Your Organization

    One of the most important considerations is whether you and/or your organization are a health information custodian, an agent of a custodian or a recipient of PHI. This will depend on your primary function, and whether it is to provide “health care” as defined in PHIPA. You must also understand when PHIPA will not apply to you.

     

    Have a Complete PHIPA Resource

    From developing a public written statement that describes the purposes for which you collect, use and disclose personal health information (PHI), to checklists that help you comply with the legislation and templates that streamline your compliance, it’s all in the Privacy Toolkit.

  • What's in the Privacy Toolkit?
    In addition to explaining the PHIPA legislation, the toolkit offers the following:
    A Comprehensive Guide to Working Within PHIPA

    The information is presented in a clear, user-friendly format, and we hope that it conveys a complete picture of how PHIPA impacts the work of community-based mental health and addiction service providers.

     

    Templates

    The toolkit provides templates that allow service providers to meet PHIPA’s requirements.

     

    Q & A

    There are also scenario-based question-and-answer sections which help illustrate how the legislation applies your specific sector.

  • Privacy Toolkit Acknowledgements

    The toolkit was funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to address a need identified by community-based mental health and addiction service providers.

     

    This Toolkit was first published in September 2005. Its principal author was Mary Jane Dykeman, consultant to CMHA Ontario, in association with the CMHA Ontario staff, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care staff and an advisory group of community mental health and addictions representatives, who are listed in the report.

     

    The 2017 Toolkit amendments presented in the toolkit were authored at the invitation of CMHA Ontario by Mary Jane Dykeman (DDO Health Law), with Anna Tersigni Phelan (CMHA Waterloo Wellington).

“Without mental health, there can be no true physical health.” Dr. Brock Chisholm Canadian Psychiatrist First Director-General of the World Health Organization
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