Why Would a Dentist Want Access to the Alberta Netcare Portal?

Posted on April 27, 2021 by Meghan in Blog

Why Would A Dentist Want Access To The Alberta Netcare Portal?

As a dentist or dental hygienist, if you have concerns about a patient’s health history, you may want to have access to the Alberta Netcare Portal to view the patient's history of health concerns and current medications.

Alberta Netcare provides personal health information that is available through a province-wide electronic record system under the authority of the Health Information Act (HIA).

Whether a dentist uses paper records, electronic dental records (EDR), or electronic medical records (EMR), using the Alberta Netcare Portal will help dentists monitor their patient’s interactions with other parts of the health care system.

What is the Alberta Netcare Portal?

Alberta Netcare Portal is the secure vehicle through which patient health information from a variety of health care providers is shared and accessed electronically, by independent and hospital-based health service providers like dentists, physicians, nurses and pharmacists. The Alberta Netcare Portal is a data collection centre for registries and systems such as laboratories, diagnostic imaging facilities, hospitals and some specialized clinics. Alberta Health and Wellness is the Netcare information manager.

Dentists and Dental Hygienists Are Custodians

Dentists were designated in 2010 as authorized custodians under the Health information Act (HIA). Dentists can now request access to Alberta Netcare by showing that they meet the Netcare requirements.

Dentists who manage patients with complex medical conditions or for the provision of treatment requiring sedation or general anaesthesia may require additional information about the patients’ health history. Dentists can use Alberta Netcare Portal to view medication profiles, laboratory data and tests results.

Ensuring reasonable safeguards to protect the privacy and security of personal health information of your patients and residents of Alberta is critical! We want everyone who has access to these health data repositories to follow the same best privacy and security practices. The HIA has regulated requirements for all custodians to follow.

Everyone needs to follow the rules to play in the sandbox!

How To Get Started

Before you are granted access to Alberta Netcare Portal, you must complete the following steps.

Step 1: Create or update your Health Information Management Privacy and Security Policies and Procedures including the rules governing the access, collection, use, of health information from Alberta Netcare.

Step 2: Complete a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) and submit this to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for review. For more information on how to complete a PIA, click here.

Step 3: Train your team on privacy awareness. I recommend the Privacy Awareness in Health Care Training — Dental Practices.

Step 4: Contact the eHealth Netcare Support Services Team.

Step 5: Complete a Provincial Organizational Readiness Assessment (pORA). See What is a pORA.

Step 6: Sign an Informational Manager Agreement (IMA) and Review Informational Exchange Protocol (IEP) with Alberta Netcare

For more tips on implementing reasonable privacy and security safeguards for your dental practice, see https://informationmanagers.ca/privacy-impact-assessment-pia/.

You can also watch the FAQ video on this topic by clicking the button below!

Watch the FAQ Video HERE!

You May Also Be Interested In:

What is a pORA?

New Health Information Policy and Procedure Manuals

Do You Need An Expedited Netcare Privacy Impact Assessment?

Who Is Doing the Recalls In Your Dental Practice?

Privacy Awareness in Healthcare Training: Dental Practices

Privacy Impact Assessment – Consultation Options Available!

When we know better, we can do better…

Jean Eaton is constructively obsessive about privacy, confidentiality, and security especially when it comes to the handling of personal health information. If you would like to discuss how I can help your practice, just send me an email. I am here to help you.

Jean L. Eaton
Your Practical Privacy Coach
INFORMATION MANAGERS

Alberta Netcare, ANP, dental hygienist, dentist, healthcare, PIA, PIA Consultant, privacy, Privacy Impact Assessment

What Is a pORA?

Posted on January 6, 2021 by Meghan in Blog

What Is A pORA?

The Provincial Organizational Readiness Assessment (pORA) document is a risk assessment tool that describes the technical, administrative, and physical security controls necessary to meet the minimum-security standards required by legislation and by Alberta Health.

When we provide our personal and sensitive information to a healthcare provider, we want assurances that the confidential information will be respected. We expect that our information will only be shared with people who need to know the information to provide health services to us. Alberta's Health Information Act (HIA) requires healthcare providers (custodians) to put appropriate safeguards in place to protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of health information.

A completed pORA is one of the pre-requisites for community sites to access the Alberta Netcare Portal.

Alberta Netcare, known as the provincial Electronic Health Record (EHR), is a secure and confidential electronic system. It is accessible to health professionals and contains Albertans’ personal health information. This is also known as the Alberta Netcare Portal or ANP.

A pORA asks questions similar to the questions in a privacy impact assessment and is frequently completed at the same time as a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) when a new clinic is preparing to open. It's easy to get them confused, but they are separate documents and have separate purposes.

PIA

A Privacy Impact Assessment is a process that assists healthcare providers (custodians) to review the impact that an implementation of a new administrative practice, information system, or change to existing practices or systems relating to the collection, use and disclosure of individually identifying health information, may have on individual privacy. This includes how the clinic will ensure appropriate safeguards to ALL information sharing practices, including the use of Alberta Netcare.

In Alberta, a PIA must be submitted by the custodian to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) for review and acceptance.

pORA

This comprehensive risk assessment is required by Alberta Health to verify that a community healthcare provider custodian meets minimum security standards, before accessing provincial health information. It is one of the core requirements for access to the ANP and assists the custodian in meeting their legislative requirements and protect the privacy, confidentiality, and security of health information.

The pORA is submitted by the custodian to Alberta Netcare prior to access to Alberta Netcare Portal.
Prior to being granted access to Alberta Netcare Portal, the custodian must also have a PIA accepted by the OIPC.

We know that technology and office practices change over time. It is an expectation that the healthcare provider custodian will review their PIA, pORA, and supporting policies and procedures regularly, at least annually. Alberta Netcare requires that within two years from the date of approval of the pORA that its contents be thoroughly reviewed to ensure the information is correct and up-to-date.

For more information about pORA, see Alberta Netcare. Frequently Asked Questions. Provincial Organization Readiness Assessment. February 2020.

Watch the FAQ video here!

Did you enjoy this article? If you'd like to look at similar posts, visits these links:

Do You Need An Expedited Netcare Privacy Impact Assessment?

Alberta, Alberta Netcare, Alberta Netcare Portal, ANP, Health Information Act, HIA, Netcare, p-ORA, pORA, Privacy Impact Assessment, Provincial Organizational Readiness Assessment

Will MyHealth Records Patient Portal Impact Your Healthcare Practice?

Posted on November 6, 2020 by Jean Eaton in Blog

Patient Portals Improves Access To Own Health Information

Residents of Alberta can now access their personal COVID-19 and other lab test results, immunization history, dispensed medication history and more in their own MyHealth Records – the patient portal view of Alberta Netcare.

In October 2020, parents can now access their children's COVID-19 test result lookup, too.

The sign-up process has recently been changed to permit rapid sign-up to access MyHealth Records.

Watch the short video above for my quick review of MyHealth Records.

MyHealth Records

The Alberta Netcare website says that MyHealth Records is a Personal Health Record for Albertans to access some of their health information, such as lab results, medications, and immunizations drawn from Alberta Netcare.

MyHealth Records also provides access to several health and wellness tools to help track and maintain overall health. (See the complete list of features here.)

Alberta Health has announced that the first step for patients to access thier own records is to request your MyAlberta Digital ID (MADI) which will eventually act as your login credentials to the ANP.

If you have not already registered for MADI access you may do so here: MyAlberta Digital ID.

You will see 2 options – one for a basic account and one for a verified account. Select the verified account.

You will receive a personal identification number (PIN) in the mail.

When you have a verified account, you can go to your MyAlberta Digital ID account and add a new MyHealth Records access.

You can do this now – no need to wait!

You will (probably) have access to medications dispensed by pharmacists and lab and diagnostic imaging tests results for the last 18 months. Remember, not all test results are available.

You can now also add your own journal entries for your weight, food diary, exercise diary and other tools to help you manage your health.

If your healthcare provider is also using the secure messaging system supported by MyHealth Records, you may be able to send a secure message to your healthcare provider, too.

This is a patient portal into your health information maintained by Alberta Health Services and Alberta Netcare.

The original or ‘source’ data continues to be securely managed in the service providers’ originating electronic systems. The originating systems and their custodians are required to keep the records for the entire records retention period; generally 10 years.

The information in the MyHealth Records portal may only be available to you for 18 months to 2 years. If you choose to add information to your account, I believe that information will be maintained for a limited time (for example, 2 years).

Patient portal

Patient Portals Can Reduce Barriers

The use of a patient portal can reduce barriers for patients to access their own records. Other benefits to patient portals may include:

Increased empowerment to patients who can access their own results in a timely fashion
Better communication with patients
Fewer access requests (and increased administration efficiencies)
Fewer missed appointments (and increased access to care)

How Will Patient Portals Affect Your Healthcare Practice?

Will you tell your patients that they can access some of their lab results themselves directly from MyHealth Records?

Let me know your experiences with patient portals and your questions. I really would like to know your thoughts on how portals may impact your healthcare practice.

⇓ ⇓ Click the >> arrow button to play the video!

Patient Portals In Your Healthcare Practice