Presentation: PIPEDA and Physicians - MSNS AGM 2004

I was recently invited to give a presentation to the Annual General Meeting of the Medical Society of Nova Scotia on the impact of PIPEDA on physicians. (See presentation: PIPEDA and Physicians - MSNS AGM 2004.)

Since last year, I have been working with National Privacy Services and the Medical Society to design an easy-to implement solution for busy physicians. In our experience, most physicians don't have the time or the inclination to design their own compliance program. And as small business people with tightening revenue, physicians don't have the resources to engage a privacy lawyer to assist them. (Perhaps as important, most doctors don't know about the law, let alone what they need to do to address it.)

The final product is the Physician's Privacy Manual, which includes a complete suite of products that a physician can implement in his or her practice. The Manual includes:

• Privacy training manual (the only one of its kind designed from the ground up to address privacy in the private practice;
• Policies and procedures to adopt in the practice;
• Consent form for affirmative, opt-in consent;
• Educational tools, including a privacy statement for patients and poster; and
• Multi-media CD with a one-hour overview of PIPEDA and its requirements.

The procedures and tools contained in the Physician's Privacy Manual have been extensively field tested in private practices and subjected to review by a wide range of physician focus groups. For more information, contact National Privacy Services at http://www.privlaw.com or (toll free) at 1-877-PRIVLAW.