Privacy Policy

Alpha Healthcare Serves is the organisation responsible for the personal information described here. In the course of providing care we act as a health information custodian under Ontario's Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA), and we also handle personal information under the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

Questions, requests and complaints about privacy can go to our privacy contact at info@ahshomecare.ca or (905) 555-0142.

• Enquiries. When you contact us through this website, by phone or by email, we collect your name, contact details, the city you are in and whatever you choose to tell us about your situation.
• Care information. Once care begins we collect what we need to deliver it safely — health history, medications, mobility and cognition, care plans, visit notes, schedules, emergency contacts and details of the people involved in a client's care. Most of this is personal health information under PHIPA.
• Caregiver applications. If you apply to work with us we collect your name and contact details, and later your work history, certifications, references and the results of a police record check including Vulnerable Sector screening.
• Website technical data. Our web host keeps standard server logs — IP address, timestamp, the page requested and your browser's user agent. This site does not use analytics or advertising trackers, and it sets no cookies of its own. See our Cookie Policy.

• Responding to your enquiry and arranging a free in-home assessment.
• Planning, delivering, coordinating and adjusting care.
• Matching caregivers to clients and scheduling visits.
• Assessing job applicants and meeting our screening obligations as an employer.
• Billing, and administering funded hours where a client has them.
• Meeting our legal, regulatory, insurance and professional obligations.

We rely on your consent to collect and use personal health information for care, and you can withdraw that consent — see “Your choices and rights” below. Some uses are required by law and continue regardless.

We share personal information only where it is needed, and only with:

• The caregivers and coordinators assigned to a client's circle of care.
• Physicians, nurses, hospitals and other health providers involved in that client's care, where sharing is necessary to deliver it.
• Ontario Health atHome or another funder, where a client's care is publicly funded or co-funded.
• Family members or a substitute decision-maker a client has authorised.
• Service providers who work on our behalf — for example payroll, scheduling software or our web host — under obligations to protect the information.
• Anyone else where the law requires or permits it, including where there is a risk of serious harm.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not use it to build advertising profiles.

Health records are retained for the period required by applicable Ontario legislation and professional standards. Enquiries that do not lead to care, and applications that do not lead to employment, are kept only as long as needed for the purpose they were collected for, then securely destroyed.

We limit access to those who need it to do their job, require confidentiality undertakings from staff and caregivers, train on privacy obligations, and apply physical and technical safeguards to records in our custody. No system is perfect; if a breach creates a real risk of significant harm we will notify the people affected and the appropriate regulator as the law requires.

• Ask for access to the personal information or health records we hold about you.
• Ask us to correct anything inaccurate or incomplete.
• Withdraw consent to a particular use or disclosure, subject to legal limits — we will explain the consequences for care before you decide.
• Ask how your information has been used or disclosed.
• Ask us to stop contacting you.

Write to info@ahshomecare.ca. We may need to verify your identity, and we will respond within the timeframes the applicable legislation sets.

Please raise a concern with us first — we would rather fix it directly. If you are not satisfied, you can contact the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario about personal health information, or the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada about other personal information.

We may update this policy as our practices or the law change. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised, and the current version always governs.