Glen Abernethy

To be clear, once again, under the Health Information Act the Department of Health and Social Services are required to complete Privacy Impact Assessments before implementing a change to or implementing a new information system or communications technology that involves, and I think this is the key point, the collection, use, or disclosure of personal health information.

Mr. Speaker, we already had EMR in the Northwest Territories and we were rolling it out throughout the Northwest Territories. We did not change that; that was still the same. With the health amalgamation moving to a single...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, under the Health Information Act, the Department of Health and Social Services and its authorities are required to complete privacy impact assessments before implementing a change to or implementing new information systems or communications technology that involved collection, use or disclosure of personal health information.

To be clear, Mr. Speaker, there have been no changes to the Department of Health and Social Services Authorities Health Information Systems as a result of system transformation. These systems were in place and utilized by the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the department has actually been working with TELUS to upgrade our EMR to be able to mask or hide client information to address consent conditions brought forward by clients, those individuals who don't want their information seen. Limited masking is currently available in the EMR but there is an upgrade that is currently being installed and tested. It was put in place in September 2016. We are doing some testing on it now that will do exactly what the Member is asking. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When the Member raised this before, I clearly take issues of privacy very seriously and I actually had our policy staff as well as legal do an in-depth review of the Health Information Act, and there appears to be a misunderstanding that the changes to the information systems occurred because of system transformation. The fact is there were no changes to the information systems. Whether they are digital systems or non-digital systems, there were not changes to the systems as a result of health transformation. There are changes to systems coming and we are doing the PIAs accordingly as per our...

There are two recommendations that were specific to the community, and, as I said, I feel that those recommendations, although they reference the community, are still a territorial recommendation. The first one, recommendation number 3, was to review first responder training in Aklavik. Mr. Speaker, we have provided training around the Northwest Territories. Now, we are just reviewing. The last round was delivered in Aklavik so that we could deliver it. We are looking at enhancing and ensuring that training gets out to all communities in the Northwest Territories. We are currently looking at a...

Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when the Chief Public Health Officer put out the health advisory, it was based on a number of reports that were prepared by different organizations, including universities, that had done some environmental assessment on those lakes. It is my understanding that Kam Lake was not one of the lakes that was included in that study, so it was not included on the health advisory.

I don't personally know the arsenic levels in that lake, but given the history of that lake and where it is located, you might want to be cautious about drinking the water out of Kam Lake...

A critical incident investigation of this sort is intended to do just that, provide us with recommendations and thoughts on how we can improve our system for all people of the Northwest Territories. There are 16 recommendations. Some of them, I think, are easier than others, and we are moving on all of the recommendations with the exception of two. Those two recommendations that we are not doing, as outlined, we are doing portions of. Specifically, like I say, we are not going to move forward with the territorial ambulance service. The other recommendation we are not moving forward is the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as a result of the critical incident investigation, 16 recommendations were provided to me. Of those recommendations, two of them are specific to Aklavik; the remainder are more systemic or system-based. The two recommendations that do reference Aklavik specifically in my mind also are for the whole territory, not just for Aklavik, but clearly we have some work to do in the Northwest Territories to improve care for all residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The water that the Department of Health and Social Services will look at through its environmental health officers tends to be water that is drinking water. That is our mandate. To review or do an assessment on other lakes, the Member might want to make reference or ask the Minister responsible for ENR, who would be responsible for lakes that are not drinking water.