University Health Network

ConnectingGTA Health Information Exchange

The Connecting the Greater Toronto Area (cGTA) Project is a major clinical integration initiative which encompasses a population of 6.3 million across a large, diverse, and complex set of health care services and health care providers. Individual health care providers often have limited access to electronic patient data outside the boundaries of their organization or practice. Services include: acute care, community support services, complex continuing care, long term care, mental health and addiction, primary care and rehabilitation.

The cGTA Project was initiated to improve patient care delivery by allowing for timely initiation of treatment and increased coordination amongst individual health care providers while creating a robust technical infrastructure that would allow multiple partners and vendors the ability to develop new and innovative functionality in the future.

cGTA encompasses six Local Health Integration Networks,
750 healthcare organizations and over 12,000 physicians.

Resources

Challenge

EHR Privacy Considerations

  • Allow for the collection, use and disclosure of large amounts of health information from diverse sources
  • Health care providers do not have sole custody or control of health information in a shared system
  • Health care providers have different processes for implementing patient consent models

EHR Risks:

  • Increases the risk of health care providers using or disclosing health information for unauthorized purposes
  • May attract hackers and others with malicious intent
  • Easier to remove health information from a secure location and to transfer it to an unsecure device

Computable Privacy Use Case: Health Information Exchange

Video: HP-IAPP Privacy Innovation Award