Privacy Policy

This Policy applies to Tall Tree Integrated Health Centre Ltd. and Tall Tree Physiotherapy and Health Centre Ltd. (“Tall Tree Health”, “we”, “us”, “our”), doing business as Tall Tree Health, its employees, subcontractors (including computer support, students, volunteers, locums, cleaners) and independent contractors. This Policy governs the management of all personal information that has been and will be collected, used and disclosed by Tall Tree Health solely for the services offered by or through Tall Tree Health. Depending on the service or product involved, we may be engaged as a service provider, and in that capacity, we may collect, use and disclose personal health information.

Tall Tree Health is committed to collecting, using, and disclosing personal information responsibly. Personal information is any information about a specific, identifiable individual, including name, address, telephone number, and personal history. Personal information includes personal health information, which means diagnostic, treatment and care information relating to a specific individual and any other information about an individual that would fall within the definition of personal health information as found in provincial health sector privacy legislation.

We value privacy and are committed to protecting the privacy, confidentiality and security of our patients’ personal information, including personal health information in our custody or under our control.

By accessing Tall Tree Health’s Website (“Website”) or using any of Tall Tree Health’s services (including but not limited to services provided by regulated and unregulated healthcare providers), you agree to be bound by the terms of this Privacy Policy. Please note that your use of our Website is also subject to our Terms and Conditions Agreement.

British Columbia’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), which came into effect on January 1, 2004, sets out the rules for how businesses such as ours can collect, use and disclose personal information.

In addition, as a service provider to public bodies, such as ICBC and WorkSafeBC, we are committed to ensuring that we have policies and procedures in place in compliance with these public bodies in addition to The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.B.C. 1996 c. 165 (FIPPA). We are committed to ensuring our employees and staff, who are assisting us in our work for public bodies understand their obligations under the FIPPA in this regard.

We will inform our patients of why and how we collect, use and disclose their personal information, obtain their consent where required, and only handle their personal information in a manner that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances. This Privacy Policy (the "Policy"), in compliance with PIPA and FIPPA, outlines the principles and practices we will follow in protecting patients' personal information. Our privacy commitment includes ensuring the accuracy, confidentiality, and security of our patients’ personal information and allowing our patients to request access to, and correction of, their personal information.

Collection, Use and Disclosure of Personal Information

We may collect, use or disclose personal information as set out below and as otherwise required or permitted by federal and provincial law. For example, we may collect your name, gender, date of birth, address, email address, phone number, payment card information, general health concerns, health card number, physician, diagnosis, referrals, treatment plans and other relevant information as required.

Health Care Services: We may collect, use and disclose your personal information for the purposes of assessment, planning, treatment or delivering other health-related services. We may collect personal information from you directly or from other third parties if you provide us with consent to do so or if we are authorized to do so by law. We will only collect the personal information we need to provide you with health care services.

In the course of providing health care services, your personal information may be shared with health information custodians involved in your care (e.g., another physician or health care practitioner, an allied professional or a member of your clinical care team) unless instructed otherwise by you. For example, if you provide us with your physician’s information, we may contact them with a request to provide a referral for you to access Tall Tree Health’s services. We may also share your personal information for the purposes of contacting your emergency contact or emergency services if necessary for your safety.

Consent:

• Unless the purposes for collecting personal information are obvious and you voluntarily provide your personal information for those purposes, we will communicate the purposes for which personal information is being collected, either orally or in writing, before or at the time of collection.

• Before a disclosure is made to a third party, a notation shall be made in the file that you have provided express consent, or a signed patient consent form is appended to the file.

• If you do not wish for your personal information to be used or shared, you have the right to refuse to provide all or part of the information to us at the time we request the information or anytime afterwards.

• We may not be able to fulfill your wishes if they impact our ability to deliver quality health care to you or if we are legislated to use or disclose the information to which you object. In these cases, we will discuss the impact of your objection with you.

• If we find it necessary to disclose your information for purposes other than providing health care, we will notify you of the purpose for the disclosure and ask you for consent to disclose the information.

• You have the option of using audio or video for accessing health care sessions. In general, Tall Tree Health does not permit the recording of audio or video sessions. If there is a purpose to record an audio or video session, this will be discussed with you beforehand and only completed with your express consent.

• The way we collect your consent may vary depending on the purpose of the consent.

• Your information may be shared without your consent only under the following circumstances:

1. If you are judged to be at serious imminent risk of doing significant harm to yourself or others;

2. If you disclose information indicating that a child or vulnerable adult is at risk of abuse or neglect;

3. If your records are subpoenaed by the court;

4. If it is in accordance with any other lawful requirement to do so.

Personnel Access: Tall Tree Health only permits Tall Tree Health personnel (“Personnel” which includes our employees, contractors and subcontractors) to access personal information to the extent necessary to perform their designated functions. We require Personnel to commit to protecting personal information by complying with our policies, procedures, and federal and provincial law.

More generally, we have in place appropriate physical, technological, and organizational safeguards including access controls to protect personal information against loss, theft, and unauthorized access, use and disclosure. Notwithstanding the safeguards we employ and our commitment to protecting personal information, we cannot guarantee the security or error-free transmission or storage of personal information. There are risks inherent in the use of electronic means to transmit and hold information in electronic format. These risks can be minimized but not eliminated by the use of appropriate security measures, such as the measures Tall Tree Health employs. These risks include interception, loss, corruption, unauthorized access to, use and disclosure of personal information, and delay in the availability of personal information.

You play an important role in protecting your privacy and your personal information and for that purpose, we ask you to do the following:

• Password-protect your device, email account, and JaneApp account with strong and unique passwords. Do not share these passwords with anyone.

• Choose a quiet, private location from which to receive health care services.

Payment: We may collect, use and disclose your personal information for the purposes of facilitating and/or collecting payment for our services or to determine any entitlement to insurance coverage or other benefits.

Research: Tall Tree Health may conduct or participate in research and analysis in which case your personal information, including personal health information, may be analyzed in de-identified form. The results of this research and analysis will not be disclosed or otherwise published in a manner that could identify an individual. Any additional testing for research or analysis purposes that involves the collection, use or disclosure of information that could identify an individual will involve a separate informed consent process.

Marketing: Tall Tree Health may send you marketing emails about news, offers, events, and other information that we believe you will find valuable, interesting, or informative. If you are no longer interested in receiving marketing communications, you may unsubscribe through the link at the bottom of every email. This will not opt you out of appointment or booking emails or emails regarding changes to our terms, conditions, and policies.

Cookie Policy: Tall Tree Health uses cookies to track the usage statistics of our Website and user preferences. Cookies are small pieces of information stored in the hard drive of your computer by your browser. These are necessary to help you access and move around our Site and use its features. We also use essential cookies for fraud detection and prevention purposes. Like all websites, our servers automatically record ‘log files’ that contain information about the volume and characteristics of the traffic. Examples of this include IP addresses, number of pages viewed, and length of time spent on the Website. We cannot identify you from these log files. We use them to help us monitor and improve our Site and the services we provide.

You may set your browser to disable cookies. You also have the ability to delete cookies that have been accepted. You can opt out of web analytics activity by setting your browser to notify you when a cookie is sent and block analytics cookies if desired. Please consult your individual browser’s help menu for instructions.

Analytics: Tall Tree Health uses Google Analytics to analyze user activity to enhance our Website so that it is useful and relevant for our visitors. Analytics information collected through the Website is used for internal purposes only. We do not track identifiable information about individuals visiting the Site unless an on-site purchase or a submission form enquiry has been made. You can see how Google uses data when you visit their partners’ websites by visiting this link: www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. 

This Website implements:

• Remarketing with Google Analytics

• Google Display Network Impression Reporting

• Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting

• Integrated services that require Google Analytics to collect data for advertising purposes, including the collection of data via advertising cookies and identifiers.

Advertising: Third-party service providers may use cookies to serve ads based on past visits to this Website. To provide customized advertising and for other internalSiteinformation purposes, our ad servers, or those of our third-party service providers, may use data such as age, gender, and interests to better understand the behaviour of Website visitors. These companies also use automated technologies to collect information when you click on our ads, which helps track and manage the effectiveness of our marketing efforts. Third-party vendors may show our ads on  websites across the internet.

The following websites provide information on opting out of advertising features:

• http://optout.networkadvertising.org/#!/ 

• https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/ 

Internal Operations: We may collect, use and disclose personal information for the purposes of risk management, training, security or otherwise to improve the quality of Tall Tree Health services, including the evaluation and monitoring of those services, such as for auditing and quality assurance purposes.

Legal & Compliance: We may disclose your personal information where required or permitted by law including to respond to a subpoena, order, or similar obligation to produce information, establish or exercise Tall Tree Health’s legal rights including defend against legal claims, detect, investigate, suppress, prevent or take action regarding illegal or prohibited activities, including without limitation suspected fraud and threats to the reputation or safety of any person. We may transfer any information about you concerning a proposed or completed merger or sale involving all or part of Tall Tree Health or as part of a corporate reorganization or other change in corporate control.

Storage of Personal Information

Tall Tree Health is the custodian of all patient records. Tall Tree Health stores your personal information in electronic format on servers located within Canada, using computer systems with restricted access. Tall Tree Health also uses third-party software and service providers for various services including but not limited to technical, operational and other business services. For example, we may use service providers for payment processing applications. Some of our service providers may operate from outside of Canada, which means that personal information they use on our behalf for their services may be subject to the law of the country or state in which they operate. When we transfer personal information, we take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is protected from loss, theft or unauthorized access, use, modification and disclosure. Unless we notify you otherwise, we will retain your personal information for a period of 16 years from the last date of service. After this time, your information will be deleted.

When personal information is deleted, it is permanently removed from our active database and destroyed.

The following security safeguards are employed to ensure that patient personal information is appropriately protected against unauthorized access, disclosure and inappropriate alteration or misuse:

• Technical safeguards such as user authentication system protection, data encryption, two-factor authentication, firewall and virus scanning software, protected external electronic communications, encrypted email for any external communication of patient health information, secure electronic record disposal, and destruction of removable media.

• Physical safeguards include a monitored alarm system with an individual keypad entry system, deadbolt entry lock, and storage of paper-based files in locked file rooms and cabinets to which access is restricted to administrative and clinical staff only. Paper files are securely shredded when no longer needed, and electronically stored information is Username and password protected. All electronically stored information is deleted when no longer needed.

Our Website may also contain links to third-party websites that are not owned or controlled by Tall Tree Health. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other websites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our Website and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personal information.
Access, Correction, and Complaints

You may ask to see your health record or make a formal written request to see and/or obtain a copy of your health record with Tall Tree Health. In extremely limited circumstances, we may deny or restrict your access to your health record (e.g., if it is reasonable to believe the disclosure would result in a risk of serious harm to you or another person or if a provincial or federal act prohibits disclosure).

If you believe your health record to be inaccurate or incomplete, you may make a request in writing that the record is corrected. We will make the correction if you demonstrate that the information is inaccurate or incomplete for the purposes for which the information is being used. We may not correct the record if it was not originally created at Tall Tree Health and we do not have sufficient knowledge, expertise or authority to correct it; or if the record consists of a professional opinion or observation made in good faith about you. We will, however, note the request for correction and the fact that we did not make any changes based on one of these reasons in the record.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to amend the Policy at any time to account for changes to our practices and to comply with federal and provincial privacy legislation as they may each apply. Please check to see if we have amended the Policy since you last used the Tall Tree Health Website to ensure you are aware of (and agree to) our current privacy practices. You may request a copy of the Privacy Policy currently in effect at any time by contacting us.

Privacy Policy last updated: March 9, 2023.