Health Care Professionals

The ConnectingOntario solution gives patients, or their substitute decision maker(s), the option to restrict access to patient data within the solution. If a patient restricts access to his / her data, health care providers querying the solution will not be able to access any patient information to which a consent directive has been applied.

A patient may restrict access to either:

• All of his/her reports in ConnectingOntario (Domain Consent Directive);
• A particular report (health information custodian (HIC) – Record Consent Directive);
• A particular provider from a particular HIC (HIC – Agents Consent Directive);
• A particular provider (Agent Consent Directive)

Overriding a Consent Directive

The ConnectingOntario solution permits a health care provider in special cases to temporarily override a patient’s or their substitute decision maker(s) consent directive.

Health care providers can override the consent directive under the following circumstances:

• With the express consent from the patient or their substitute decision maker(s)
• Understanding, on reasonable grounds, that the override is necessary for the purpose of eliminating or reducing a significant risk of serious bodily harm to the individual to whom the personal health information relates, and it is not reasonably possible to obtain the consent of the individual in a timely manner;
• Understanding, on reasonable grounds, that the override is necessary for the purpose of eliminating or reducing a significant risk of serious bodily harm to a person other than the individual to whom the personal health information relates or to a group of persons;
• Temporary overrides will be logged in the ConnectingOntario solution interface, along with the identity of the overriding health care provider. We will notify the HIC if one of their agents overrides the consent directive.