The Ontario Personal Health Information Protect Act, 2004 ↗︎ permits health information custodians to screen electronic health records with algorithms available through Ensho’s data labs for the purpose of risk management, error management or activities to improve or maintain the quality of care or any related programs or services of the custodian.
Ensho Health Intelligent Systems Inc. (“Ensho”) is a health technology company whose mission is to empower healthcare providers to do more with data. We realize our mission through the development and application of algorithms that screen electronic health records for specific clinical use-cases deployed at our clinical data labs. Each data lab operates under the supervision of a Medical Director and performs computational analysis of electronic health records as a service to physicians. We conduct analyses by:
processing the data we receive with our Apollo automated electronic data capture (“aEDC”) system;
inputting the parameters we extract with Apollo to algorithms encoded in medical device software; and
preparing reports summarizing the outcomes of our analyses.
Our algorithms are intended for use as decision support tools that aid physicians in improving the detection, treatment and management of patients with rare and complex cardiovascular, neurological and rheumatic disorders that are difficult to screen for or lack definitive biomarkers. Their intended use includes identifying individuals in which specific follow-up investigations may be clinically appropriate.
They can be ordered through PDF and HTML requisition forms by physicians that attest to their use in the diagnosis or detection of a disease, illness, impairment, symptom, syndrome, or disorder or in medical management.
Section 37 of the Ontario Personal Health Information Privacy Act, 2004 ↗︎ permits custodians to use personal health information without the prior consent of patients when any of the following conditions apply:
A health information custodian may use personal health information about an individual... for the purpose of risk management, error management or for the purpose of activities to improve or maintain the quality of care or to improve or maintain the quality of any related programs or services of the custodian
Section 10 of the Ontario Personal Health Information Privacy Act, 2004 ↗ permits health information custodians to retain service providers like us to process information for a permitted use and binds us to the same obligations as the custodians:
A person who provides goods or services for the purpose of enabling a health information custodian to use electronic means to collect, use, modify, disclose, retain or dispose of personal health information shall comply with the prescribed requirements, if any
We require all healthcare providers to execute our PHIPA-compliant services agreement and any data transfer authorizations required by their electronic medical record system service providers before we agree to process their data.
Physicians in Ontario can send electronic health records for which they are custodians to our data labs for analysis in compliance with the Ontario Personal Health Information Privacy Act, 2004 if they plan on using the outputs to aid in diagnosis or detection of a disease, illness, impairment, symptom, syndrome, or disorder or in medical management. Doing so would qualify as a permitted use of personal health information for the purpose of activities to improve or maintain the quality of care provided by that physician as defined in Part (d) of Section 37 by an authorized information manager as described in Section 10.