Find and Fix the Gaps in Clinic Privacy with a Privacy Impact Assessment

A Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) establishes your plan for compliant clinic operations, data protection, and privacy breach prevention across all aspects of your healthcare clinic. We will help your clinic stay up-to-date on the latest healthcare privacy compliance regulations and breach prevention protocols.

Why You Need A Privacy Impact Assessment

A PIA is the process of examining how your clinic collects, uses, discloses, and disposes of protected patient information to establish administrative, physical, and technology safeguards that protect the data in your care against reasonably anticipated threats.

A PIA helps to:

Identify potential healthcare privacy risks before they result in breaches
Ensure that your clinic is on top of the latest healthcare privacy regulations and laws
Establish the best practices for handling sensitive data across your healthcare organization

In some jurisdictions such as Alberta, Canada, PIAs are mandatory for many healthcare professions. Privacy legislation around the world is evolving to require PIAs for all businesses.

Often more than 300 pages long, a PIA is your team’s playbook for compliant operations designed to avoid privacy breaches in your practice and keep you, your staff, and your patients safe.

A proper PIA examines all aspects of your practice for impacts to privacy and establishes a plan for breach prevention.

Get an Expert Privacy Impact Assessment for Your Clinic

Our thorough assessments and robust data protection strategies provide you with a customized privacy framework that ensures all sensitive data is handled securely and in compliance with privacy regulations. Here are some of the top reasons why clinics choose Brightsquid to complete their PIA.

Healthcare Privacy Experts

With decades of collective experience in healthcare privacy and compliance consulting, our nationally-certified team shares a deep level of understanding in how privacy regulations apply to operations in dozens of clinic types and business settings.

More Than A Checkbox

A strong PIA lays the foundation for privacy compliance at your clinic. Ongoing compliance takes ongoing effort and support. Our team will be available to help you navigate the overwhelming world of privacy for a full year after we begin working together (or longer if you choose).

Comprehensive Approach

Our PIA services cover the full range of data processing and patient management activities in your clinic. Your subscription also includes compliance and breach prevention training, breach investigation and reporting, regular check-ins, and oncall Privacy Officer support.

Does Your Clinic Require a Privacy Impact Assessment?

Any clinic anywhere can, and should, complete a PIA.
Clinics in 11 disciplines in the province of Alberta are required by law to complete, submit and keep-up-to-date a Privacy Impact Assessment.The following professionals are required to submit a PIA to the Office of Information and Privacy Commissioner in Alberta.

Regulated members of the Alberta Dental Association and College
Regulated members of the College of Alberta Denturists
Regulated members of the College of Registered Dental Hygienists of Alberta
Regulated members of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Province of Alberta
Regulated members of the Alberta College of Pharmacists
Regulated members of the Alberta College of Optometrists
Registered members of the Alberta Opticians Association
Regulated members of the Alberta College and Association of Chiropractors
Registered members of the Alberta Association of Midwives
Registered members of the Alberta Podiatry Association
Regulated members of the College and Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta

Why Regular PIA Reviews Matter

Getting a Privacy Impact Assessment done for your clinic is not a one-time thing. In order to stay aligned with evolving healthcare privacy compliance laws, clinics must complete regular PIA reviews. Apart from privacy laws, technologies used in healthcare are regularly subject to version upgrades and feature additions that require updates to existing PIAs.

Regular reviews make sure your PIA is descriptive of your current clinic configurations and help identify new vulnerabilities before they become privacy breaches. At Brightsquid, we offer annual PIA reviews and ongoing privacy compliance support to help clinics stay compliant, secure, and protected.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA)?

A Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) is a structured process that evaluates risks in how your clinic handles and manages sensitive patient information at every touchpoint. A PIA helps spot vulnerabilities in your data management processes before they turn into breaches. It also helps your clinic stay updated and in sync with evolving compliance and legal requirements. More than just a regulatory checkbox, a PIA serves as a proactive risk management tool that lays the framework for compliant operations and the prevention of privacy breaches. Brightsquid’s PIAs are customized to reflect the unique data collection, use, and disclosure processes and configurations in your clinic.

How often should we update our PIA?

PIAs need to reflect current operations. It is always a good idea to review you clinic’s PIA annually. Significant changes to how you collect, use, disclose, and dispose of patient information require an amendment to your PIA. Changes to who is responsible for the patient data in your control also need to be reflected in your PIA. Some new technology and process implementations may require a new Privacy Impact Assessment specific to that project. A PIA update may also be necessary when new privacy regulations are introduced. Help with PIA updates for internal changes, as well as regulatory updates, is included for clinics subscribed to Brightsquid Privacy Support Services.

What makes Brightsquid’s PIA service different?

At Brightsquid, our Privacy Impact Assessments are written by a team of certified privacy experts with decades of healthcare privacy compliance experience. Our team-based approach means that you can always get answers to your questions, and the shared experience provides greater flexibility in how your PIA is written to accommodate existing operations as much as possible. A PIA is the foundation for ongoing privacy compliance and breach prevention. That’s why continued privacy support to address questions around vendor selection, software implementation, breach response support and guidance, and more are included with every PIA we write.

Who completes the PIA at Brightsquid?

Our PIAs are completed by privacy professionals with deep knowledge of privacy regulations and how they relate to healthcare clinic operations. The Brightsquid Privacy team has written more than 1000 PIAs for clinics and the organizations that support them.

Get Your Clinic’s Privacy Impact Assessment Done Today!

Speak to our experts to schedule your Privacy Impact Assessment and safeguard your clinic’s healthcare privacy compliance!!