Medical Weight Management Centre of Canada Inc. ("MWM", "we", "us" or "our") is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information, including your personal health information. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. It explains how we collect, use, handle, and disclose your personal information.
This Privacy Policy applies to you if you are a resident of Alberta. If you are a resident of another Canadian province, this Privacy Policy does not apply to you, and you should refer to the Privacy Policy located at https://mwmcc.ca/privacy. This Privacy Policy applies to any personal information, including personal health information, that we collect from you when you: (i) receive our medical and behavioural weight management support services through our in-person and virtual care offering ("Services"), (ii) use our online patient portal (the "Portal") (iii) visit our website located at https://sdm.mwmcc.ca (the "Website:), or (iv) otherwise interact with us.
In the Province of Alberta, our Services are offered in partnership with Shoppers Drug Mart Inc. MWM Patients in Alberta may receive in-person visits in a Shoppers Drug Mart Pharmacy, and the MWM healthcare providers and other professionals may include pharmacists, nurse practitioners and other staff employed by Shoppers Drug Mart Pharmacy.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. COLLECTION AND USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We may collect and use the personal information you provide us (unless otherwise stated below), including your personal health information, when you:
- Obtain our Services
- Create an account to access and use the Portal
- Book an appointment
- Contact us
Our Services: We collect personal information from you, including personal health information, to enable MWM healthcare providers and other professionals (the "MWM Team") to provide you with medical and behavioural weight management support services through in-person and virtual care settings. We may also collect relevant personal health information about you from your other healthcare providers, such as your primary care physician, for this purpose. Your information collected in connection with our Services is stored in your medical record, which is accessible to the MWM Team through our in-person and virtual care offering.
In order to provide customized patient support, we may collect your first and last name, gender, date of birth, weight, height, body mass index, family status, personal and family medical history (including information about any treatments, diagnoses, or prescriptions), metabolic lab work, the name of your primary care provider, physician and medical referral appointment information, and other relevant information for the purposes of determining suitability for, planning and delivering our Services to you.
Virtual Care: Our non-urgent, non-emergency Services may be offered remotely over the phone. If you choose to use our Services, you will be asked to verify your identity such as answering personal validation questions at the start of your virtual care session.
We do our best to make sure that any information you give to us during virtual care visits is private and secure; however, there may be circumstances in which your communications with us, including the transmission of certain sensitive personal health information, will be through unencrypted e-communication. As with all online communications, there is a risk that your personal health information may be intercepted or unintentionally accessed or disclosed, and this risk is increased when unencrypted e-communication is used. To help mitigate this risk, you should be in a private setting when receiving virtual care and should not use an employer's or someone else's computer or device.
Our Portal: As a MWM patient, you may create an online account to access and use the Portal in order to communicate with us, complete questionnaires or assigned tasks, and access our tools and resources. In order to create and administer your account and authenticate you, we will collect your full name, email address, username and password, and phone number. You are required to keep your username and password secure and not share it with anyone else. We will never ask you for your password in any unsolicited communication (such as letters, phone calls, or email messages).
Booking an Appointment: We collect personal information when you book an appointment or request in-person or virtual care, including a consultation, through Shoppers Drug Mart, or by phone. This information may include your first and last name, email address, date of birth, height, weight, body mass index, phone number, reason for booking/requesting our Services, medical history, information regarding how you heard about MWM, and any other information you choose to provide us. We use this information to book an appropriate appointment and provide the MWM Team with the information they need to deliver services to you.
Research: From time to time, MWM may participate in medical research. All research projects undertaken by MWM will be approved by the applicable Research Ethics Board and have Health Canada approval, if required, and you will be asked to review and, if you wish to participate, sign a Patient Information and Consent Form prior to any study related interactions. We will not use or disclose your personal health information for these studies in a manner that can identify you without obtaining your consent in a manner consistent with applicable law.
Contacting Us: You may get in touch with MWM, including by telephone or email. Telephone calls may be recorded for quality assurance and auditing purposes. When you contact us with a comment, question or concern, you may provide information that identifies you, such as your name, email and phone number, along with additional information we may need to help us promptly answer your question or respond to your comment. We may retain this information to assist you in the future.
Non-Identifiable Information: We may modify or aggregate your personal information, including personal health information, such that it cannot reasonably be associated with you, for the following purposes:
(i) to protect your privacy and the security of your personal information; and
(ii) to conduct research and/or analytics with the goal of improving our Services, developing new offerings and improving weight management outcomes.
We may share such non-identifiable information or insights with certain limited third parties to assist in research, statistics, analytics, planning, or product and service development.
2. SHARING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We do not sell, rent or disclose your personal information to third parties without your consent, except as described in this Privacy Policy or as required or permitted by applicable law. Any information collected and reported on is aggregate and anonymized. Aggregate and anonymous reports about program performance and other relevant statistics will be shared with the program sponsor, Shoppers Drug Mart Inc.
Other Healthcare Providers: We may share your personal information with your other healthcare providers and facilities (e.g., your primary care physician, a pharmacy or laboratory) for the purpose of supporting your continuity of care.
Service Providers: Your personal information may be transferred (or otherwise made available) to third parties that provide services to us or on our behalf. We use third parties to provide services to us such as virtual care, laboratory testing, and cloud storage services. Our service providers are only provided with the information they need to perform their designated functions. They are not authorized to use or disclose personal information for their own marketing or other purposes.
Legal and Compliance: We and our service providers may disclose your personal information in response to a search warrant or other legally valid inquiry or order, or as otherwise may be required or permitted by applicable law or legal process, which may include lawful access by law enforcement or other government authorities. Your personal information may also be disclosed where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims and to investigate or prevent actual or suspected loss or harm to persons or property.
Sale of Business: We may transfer information we have about our patients as an asset in connection with a proposed or completed merger, acquisition or sale (including transfers made as part of insolvency or bankruptcy proceedings) involving all or part of MWM or as part of a corporate reorganization or other change in corporate control.
3. STORAGE AND LOCATION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
We use service providers who may access or store personal information, including personal health information, in Canada in the course of providing services to us. Your medical record is stored in data centers in Canada.
4. SAFEGUARDS AND RETENTION
We have implemented reasonable administrative, technical and physical measures in an effort to safeguard the personal information in our custody and control against theft, loss and unauthorized access, use, modification and disclosure. The only MWM employees and service providers who have access to our patients' personal information are those who "need to know" the information in order to carry out their job duties.
We retain personal information only for as long as necessary to carry out the purposes discussed in this Privacy Policy or to meet our legal or business requirements. Personal health information that forms part of your medical record will be retained in accordance with applicable regulatory retention guidelines.
MWM and any applicable third parties may retain non-identifiable information for the purposes outlined above under "Non-Identifiable Information".
5. YOUR CHOICES
Marketing Communications: If you have signed up to receive our email marketing communications, you can unsubscribe any time by contacting us at the contact information under "Contact Us" below.
Withdraw your Consent: If you have provided consent to our collection, use or disclosure of personal information, you can withdraw your consent at any time (subject to our legal or contractual restrictions) by contacting us at the contact information set out below. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. As set out under the "Safeguards and Retention" section above, even if you withdraw your consent, personal information that forms part of your medical record must be retained for a period of time to meet legal and regulatory obligations.
6. ACCESS TO AND UPDATING OF INFORMATION
Subject to limited exceptions under applicable law, you have the right to access, examine, update and ask to correct inaccuracies in your personal information, including personal health information, in our custody and control (and, in certain provinces, to authorize another person to receive a copy of your personal health information). You may make such requests by contacting us using the contact information set out below. We may request certain personal information from you when you make such a request in order to verify your identity.
7. UPDATES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY
We may update this Privacy Policy periodically to reflect changes to our privacy practices. We encourage you to periodically review this page to ensure you are familiar with those changes. We will indicate at the top of this Privacy Policy when it was most recently updated.
8. CONTACT US
If you have any questions, concerns or comments about this Privacy Policy or the manner in which we or our service providers handle your personal information, wish to request access to or correction of your personal information in our records or wish to withdraw your consent, please contact us at:
Privacy Officer
401-286 Sandford Ave N
Hamilton, ON
L8L 6A1
privacy@mwmcc.ca
If you have concerns with our Privacy Policy or privacy practices, we encourage you to first bring your concerns to us at privacy@mwmcc.ca. You may also seek advice from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or the provincial Privacy Commissioner having jurisdiction, and, if appropriate, file a written complaint with the Commissioner's office.
To contact the applicable privacy commissioner, please visit the following websites:
Alberta: https://oipc.ab.ca
Federal: https://www.priv.gc.ca