PEI Introduces New Legislation On Health Privacy

Prince Edward Island's  Health Information Act ("HIA"), received Royal Assent on May 14, 2014. Prior to this new legislation, personal health information was shared between the public and private sectors without any clear set of rules governing the management and control of this type of information. The HIA, which has not yet been proclaimed, attempts to balance the competing interests of protecting privacy of personal health information and the needs of health care providers to collect, use and disclose the information to provide health care and manage the health care system.

For the purposes of the legislation, "personal health information" means:

identifying information about an individual in oral or recorded form that