Privacy and Health Information Specialist

Bayshore HealthCare is one of the Canada's leading providers of home and community health care services and is a privately owned company. Bayshore HealthCare is proud to showcase its achievement as a Platinum member of Canada's Best Managed Companies Program every year since Bayshore Healthcare is also recognized as Canada's Best Employers in Forbes 2023 list. 

As part of the Clinical Quality, Health Informatics Privacy Portfolio (CQ-HIP), the Privacy & Health Information Specialist, under the direction of their reporting Director Health Information Management and Privacy Officer, is responsible for supporting compliance related to the Privacy Program and Health Information standards across Bayshore.  This includes adherence to the policy and procedures related to Privacy legislations, regulatory standards, and contractual agreements.  

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

•    Communicates and ensures that all levels of the organization is in compliance to regulatory standards and best practices in Privacy & Health Information structures are in place. This includes ensuring that Policies & Procedures and relevant federal/provincial privacy legislations are understood within the organizations, including:

o    Compliance with applicable Privacy Legislations & Contractual Agreements
o    Confidentiality & Nondisclosure Compliance
o    Privacy Impact Assessment process, Health Records Access Requests
o    Privacy Incident Management/Investigation related to Breach Protocol. 
o    Development, implementation & ongoing maintenance of the Privacy Management Education & Privacy Network Partnership 
o    Adherence and ongoing maintenance to Health Information /Record Management Program

•    Promotes and fosters privacy awareness across the organization. 

•    Works collaboratively with risk management and cross functional business leads to ensure that the organization understands and adheres to privacy, and confidentiality which reflect current organizational practices and regulatory requirements.

•    Works with and supports personnel who are involved in the disclosure of personal information to ensure the organizations' policies and procedures comply with privacy laws. 

•    Leads and administers a process to manage Privacy breach remediation and complaints concerning the organizations privacy policies and procedures. 

•    Stays up to date on proposed and amended privacy legislations (federal/provincial) and communicates accordingly with all key business/stakeholders.

Specifically, the Privacy & Health Information Specialist will support and lead the following:

Privacy Program 

•    Ensures organization adheres to Privacy management guided by legislative requirements

•    Ensures yearly compliance to Privacy education & signed confidentially & non-disclosure agreements are completed.

•    Strengthen & sustain the organizational Privacy Network /Partnership to support communication, education and incident management related to Privacy Breaches.  

•    Supports yearly reporting of   Privacy KPI metrics (# of Breach incidences; # of Release of Information Request etc) and evaluation for improvement. 

•    Supports and conducts privacy risk assessments and internal audits.   

•    Supports and liaise with business divisional Leads to adhere to the privacy breach protocol (including communication with team members and affected patients/individuals and liaises with key internal and external stakeholders such as the Privacy Commissioner, Regulatory Colleges, Police, and manages mandatory reporting obligations with the support of their reporting Director.)

•    Supports activities related to privacy investigations, assessments, communication that may include engagement with external contacts partners eg,  funder, partner privacy liaison and /or  supports Privacy officer with regulators, professional organizations, external legal counsel and home and community care associations as required

•    Supports the development, tracking and implementation on privacy training and education plan.

•    Supports the reviews and signs off on vendor agreements to ensure adequate privacy terms are included.

•    Supports organizational privacy accountability and operational maintenance. 

•    Participates in proactive Health & Safety activities while performing all duties.

•    Maintains confidentiality of client and corporate information and discuss same only with appropriate Bayshore personnel.

Health Information Management Program 

•    Supports and educates to Health Information Management (HIM) policies and procedures.

•    Assist in the development of standardized terminology and health information coding to advance the capture of high-quality data for use in patient/client care, decision support, funding and planning. 

•    Supports best practice guidelines for Health Information and Record management related to tracking, retention, retrieval, storage & destruction of information.

•    Supports activities related to analyzing, compiling, abstracting, indexing and filing of patient records. 

•    Ensure practice standards are in compliance with the federal/provincial privacy/health laws.

•    Support the lawful access, correction and disclosure procedure to third parties (such as insurance companies, police, WSIB, children's aid societies, regulatory colleges).

REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS
The Privacy & Health Information Specialist reports to the Director of Health Information Management & Privacy Officer.

Remote

Education

•    Graduate of an accredited School with Professional Designation in Health Administration, Health Information Management, Privacy 

•    Privacy and/or Health Information Management certification (CHIM, CIPP/C, CIPM, HIM)

Experience

•    Minimum three (3) years of relevant experience in privacy industry 

•    General understanding of Home care and community care services is an asset 

•    Knowledge and experience in privacy legislations, CASL (Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation) and access, release of information across Canada

•    Excellent knowledge and experience in incident management/investigations

•    Knowledge and experience in project management

Other Skills and Abilities

•    Well-developed critical thinking, problem solving, planning and analytical skills.

•    Possess exceptional judgement and acumen.

•    Ability to work collaboratively and seek input and consensus on decisions.

•    Flexibility to put in extra time when required by deadlines or system problems.

•    Well-developed communication and interpersonal skills.

•    Strong drive - a self-starter and able to work on own initiative.

•    Strong quality focus.

•    Travel to branch locations throughout Canada as required.

•    French is an asset but not a must.