Questions & Answers

Does the HIA cover the use health information for research purposes?

Sections 48 – 56 of the Health Information Act (HIA) govern the disclosure of identifying health information for the purpose of research.

In order for a researcher to request access to health information from a custodian, they must have sought and received research approval from a designated Research Ethics Review Board (RERB).

Section 50(4) of the HIA requires committees which approve researchers to collect individually identifying health information to file a copy of their response with the OIPC. This response is then logged into the OIPC Research Ethics Review Registry.

Once they have received RERB approval, researchers are allowed to forward requests for information directly to custodians.

Upon receipt of a request from a researcher with ethics approval, custodians may release health information to the researcher. The custodian must impose the conditions laid out by the RERB and may impose other conditions on the researcher.

If a custodian decides to release information to a researcher, the custodian and researcher must enter into an agreement under section 54 of the HIA. One of the criteria for an agreement of this type is that the researcher must agree to only use health information for the purpose of conducting the proposed research.

Back