Your Symptoms Matter Privacy Frequently Asked Questions

Your healthcare team collects your personal health information through Your Symptoms Matter to monitor and manage your symptoms. This information may include your name, health card number, symptoms you may be experiencing during your care (for example, nausea or pain), the facility where you are being treated and information about the doctor assessing your symptoms.

You may also be enrolled in Your Symptoms Matter to enter information about the symptoms you are experiencing (for example, your pain level is a “4” on a scale of 0 to 10) through kiosks, desktops or tablets.

In our capacity as a “health information network provider” under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004, Cancer Care Ontario enables participating hospitals and Community Care Access Centres to collect and communicate your information received via Your Symptoms Matter tool.

Cancer Care Ontario collects the same information from healthcare providers via Your Symptoms Matter tool to plan, manage and improve cancer services in the province.

We are permitted to collect, use and disclose the personal health information in our capacity as a “prescribed entity” per section 18 of Regulation 329/04 for the purposes of subsection 45(1) of Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004.

Visit CCO’s Statement of Information Practices to learn more about our authority to collect and use personal health information.

Yes. You can ask your doctor for a copy of the personal health information held about you in Your Symptoms Matter. At some hospitals, you can ask your doctor to set up your own Your Symptoms Matter access account. If you are not sure whether your hospital provides patient access to Your Symptoms Matter, please ask your doctor.

Yes. Where patient access to Your Symptoms Matter is available (see previous question), you may choose to have a trusted family member or other caregiver enter information about symptoms you are experiencing. If you choose to do this, your family member or caregiver will access Your Symptoms Matter using your health card number.

There are 3 ways your personal health information may be accessed:

• By your healthcare team
• By you, at hospitals where patient access to Your Symptoms Matter is available
• By a limited number of Cancer Care Ontario technical support staff

The healthcare team involved in your care can access your personal health information in Your Symptoms Matter through a secure website and are only permitted to access information about patients they are treating. This means that a healthcare provider who is not part of your healthcare team cannot view your Your Symptoms Matter record.

If you are enrolled to use Your Symptoms Matter, you can access only your own information through a secure website (via kiosks, desktops or tablets) using your health card number or hospital number (MRN).

Limited Cancer Care Ontario staff have access to Your Symptoms Matter to:

• provide information technology support
• extract information to plan, manage and improve cancer services in the province

Support staff also have physical access to the Your Symptoms Matter server, which is securely retained in the Cancer Care Ontario data centre.

Your personal health information in Your Symptoms Matter is protected by administrative, technical and physical safeguards:

Administrative Safeguards

Members of your healthcare team sign agreements to use Your Symptoms Matter, which require them to keep confidential the personal health information they have access to.

Cancer Care Ontario staff with access to Your Symptoms Matter sign a similar agreement, and regularly attend privacy and security training to make sure they understand the safeguards they must use to protect personal health information.

Cancer Care Ontario has also completed a privacy risk assessment for the Your Symptoms Matter tool, which looked at potential privacy and security risks related to Your Symptoms Matter and made recommendations to address these risks. We have since implemented all recommendations related to the Your Symptoms Matter tool.

Technical Safeguards

All Your Symptoms Matter users – including patients – access the tool with their health card number through a secure (encrypted) website by using a touch-screen kiosk or a secure Internet connection (i.e., HTTPS).

Physical Safeguards

The Your Symptoms Matter databases are located in Cancer Care Ontario’s secure data centre. Access to the data centre is limited to authorized staff, controlled by electronic access cards and monitored with logging and video surveillance.

Some hospitals and Community Care Access Centres have the ability to enrol you in Your Symptoms Matter so that you can enter information about the symptoms you are experiencing through a touch-screen kiosk or secure Internet connection. If you have access to Your Symptoms Matter, you will be required to read and “sign” a Terms of Use the first time you log in. This agreement outlines the rules for your appropriate use of the tool.

There are a number of additional ways that you can protect your personal health information when you use Your Symptoms Matter:

• Keep your health card number confidential unless you have chosen a trusted family member or caregiver to use Your Symptoms Matter on your behalf.
• Always make sure the “padlock” is activated on the computer screen if accessing Your Symptoms Matter from home. A closed padlock indicates the website is secure. The padlock will look like this symbol: 

  CCOpadlock.png

  

• Always log out of Your Symptoms Matter when you are done entering or viewing information.
• Contact Cancer Care Ontario’s Privacy Office if you suspect your online record was accessed by an unauthorized user.

Cancer Care Ontario Privacy Office Contact Information

If you have questions about the privacy of Your Symptoms Matter, please contact the Cancer Care Ontario Privacy Office:

Email: Legal and Privacy Office
Phone: 416-217-1816
Mail: Legal and Privacy Office, Cancer Care Ontario, 620 University Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 2L7