Your personal health information is confidential and only authorized health care professionals involved in your care will access it.

Saskatchewan Health takes great care to protect the personal health information under its control. Information is kept in strict confidence, and is used or disclosed as authorized or required by law.

The Health Information Protection Act (HIPA) provides the rules for the collection, use and disclosure of the your personal health information, and safeguards are in place to ensure patient confidentiality. Patient information is stored in a secure database and can only be viewed and printed by authorized users. Your information cannot be downloaded to other computers.

To obtain a copy of, or to correct the information contained within, your prescription information:

• A patient can request a copy of his or her own medication profile from an authorized health care practioner (e.g. pharmacist) or from the Saskatchewan Health Drug Plan.
• A patient may request an amendment to his or her own medication profile by writing to Saskatchewan Health. The Drug Plan will contact the appropriate users to determine if it is appropriate to make the amendment. If the amendment can be made, it will be made without deleting any original information. If the amendment cannot be made a notation will be included identifying that the patient requested the amendment. The patient will be notified about whether or not an amendment or notation was made.

To control access to your prescription information:

• While there are many benefits to the Pharmaceutical Information Program, a “masking” option has been developed, where residents can request that their prescriptions be hidden from view. In order to control access, an individual must complete a request to mask form and submit it to the Saskatchewan Health Drug Plan. More information about masking is available from Saskatchewan Health Drug Plan at 1-800-667-1672
• If a patient’s profile is masked, a health professional can still view a drug profile if: they have consent of the patient; it is an emergency situation where they are unable to ask for patient consent; or the health professional has a concern about abuse of drugs in certain pre-designated drug categories.
• If a patient has masked his or her own drug information and later decides that he or she would like to unmask it, the unmasking form may be downloaded and submitted, or the drug plan contacted at 1-800-667-1672 to initiate the process.

To monitor access to your prescription information:

• Each time your pharmaceutical information is accessed, the entry will be electronically tracked and logged. A report identifying who has accessed a patient’s information will be provided to patients upon request.