Our role as a Health Information Network Provider

Health Information Network Provider Overview and Safeguards

London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) and St. Joseph’s Health Care London (St. Joseph’s) jointly operate a Hospital Information System (HIS) that is made available to other hospitals in the Ontario Health West as part of the Regional Shared Service (RSS). This HIS is a suite of applications that electronically facilitate patient care by creating a real-time “digital chart”. This chart allows physicians, nurses and other authorized persons at participating hospital sites to use and share patient data for healthcare and other purposes that are permitted by Ontario’s health privacy legislation.

LHSC and St. Joseph’s role as the Health Information Network Provider (HINP) in the RSS is to implement and manage the HIS. This includes providing services such as hosting the solution, providing end-user support and providing additional supporting technology and related services as needed.

The following administrative, technical and physical safeguards are in place to help protect the security, confidentiality and integrity of individual personal health information.

Administrative

The scope of HIS services and required safeguards are defined in an agreement with the RSS Members
Staff responsible for overseeing the HIS’s privacy and security compliance have been identified
Documented disaster recovery plans are in place
Employees sign confidentiality agreements
Employees are trained on privacy awareness and security best practices
Policies and procedures that govern HIS privacy and security operations are in place and regularly reviewed
Records of user activity, such as audit logs, access reports and security incident tracking reports are regularly reviewed

Technological

Role-based user access that defines and limits the information to which users have access
Logging, auditing and monitoring controls to all authorized users
Install and maintain cyber security measures to protect technology and related services

Physical

Ensure facilities are physically secured against unauthorized access and are staffed and monitored continuously by security staff and affiliates
Have backup systems in place to protect against environmental issues such as power outages or hardware failures