Welcome to the PHIPA Summit

I am pleased to invite you to the first PHIPA Summit, 2005. We are fast approaching the one-year anniversary of the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA). Our office would like to celebrate, with the broad health provider community, PHIPA’s successful inaugural year in protecting health information.

Effective health information privacy legislation must strike the right balance between allowing health care providers to quickly pass on the information needed for patient care to other health providers, while restricting unauthorized disclosure. PHIPA is intended to do just that – to build extensive privacy protection without impeding the delivery of health care services.

This is the intent driving the theme of the summit, PHIPA: A Balancing Act. While balancing privacy protection with ready access to health information for the delivery of health care services can be a challenging task, PHIPA’s design allows for both a cautious weighing of these competing interests, and deft circumvention of obstacles to such balance when imposed. The PHIPA Summit will provide an opportunity for the health provider community to share their own experiences with PHIPA over the last year, to learn best practices and to participate in spirited debate and discussion with field leaders.

Please join us on Thursday, November 3rd, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, as we celebrate our mutual PHIPA achievements, provide a forum for discussion, debate and inquiry, and recognize the future challenges that PHIPA may present. I look forward to seeing you there.

Ann Cavoukian, Ph.D.