We collect Personal Information: Primary Purposes
About Patients
Rideau Optometric Clinic collects, uses and discloses personal information in order to serve our patients. For our patients, the primary purpose for collecting personal information is to provide optometric services. For example, we collect information about a patient's health history, including their family history, physical condition and function, and social situation in order to help us assess what their eye care needs are, to advise them of their options and then to provide the eye care they choose to have. We may communicate this information to other regulated health practitioners, technicians, or individuals authorized to work in our practice as part of a patient's continuing care. A second primary purpose is to obtain a baseline of health and social information so that in providing ongoing health services we can identify changes that are occurring over time. It would be rare for us to collect information without the patient's implied consent, but this might occur in an emergency (e.g., the patient cannot communicate) or where we believe the patient would consent if asked and it is impractical to obtain consent (e.g., a family member passing a message on from our patient where we have no reason to believe that the message is not genuine).
About Members of the General Public
For members of the general public, our primary purposes for collecting personal information are to make them aware of optometry services in general or our practice in particular, or to provide notice of special events (e.g., a seminar or vision screening). For example, while we try to use work contact information whenever possible, we might collect home addresses, fax numbers and e-mail addresses but not without consent.
On our website we only collect, with the exception of cookies, the personal information you provide and only use that information for the purpose for which it was provided (e.g., to respond to your email message, to order eye glasses or contact lenses, to request an eye examination appointment). Cookies are only used to help you navigate our website and are not used to monitor you.
About Contract Staff, Volunteers and Students
For people who are contracted to do work for us (e.g., temporary workers), our primary purpose for collecting personal information is to ensure we can contact them in the future (e.g., for new assignments) and for necessary work-related communication (e.g., sending out paycheques, year-end tax receipts). Examples of the type of personal information we collect for those purposes include home addresses and telephone numbers. It is rare for us to collect such information without prior consent, but it might happen in the case of a health emergency (e.g., a SARS outbreak) or to investigate a possible breach of law (e.g., if a theft were to occur in the office). If contract staff, volunteers or students wish a letter of reference or an evaluation, we will collect information about their work related performance and provide a report as authorized by them.