Canadians Tussle Over EHR Data Due To Poor Vendor Contract

An Alberta physician learned about the importance of establishing EHR data ownership the hard way after she lost control of more than 1500 patient records when leaving a medical group to start her own practice, according to the Mountain View Gazette.  Dr. Dianne Smith wanted to take her patients with her when she left the Didsbury Medical Clinic, but due to a technicality in the EHR vendor’s contract with the clinic, her request for access to her patients’ information was declined.

The Canadian Health Information Act (HIR) designates “custodians” of health information, who must belong to the College of Physicians and Surgeons in order to qualify.  The owner of the Didsbury Medical Clinic, Shariz Jaffer, was not a designated custodian, yet he was the one who signed the contract with the EHR vendor for Didsbury Clinic.  Since Dr. Smith was not involved in the contract at all, she technically had no right to bring Didsbury’s EHR information to a new vendor at her own practice.  EHR vendor Telin Medical Systems declined her request to access the records, and initially, Jaffer did as well.