What Constitutes Reasonable Searches for Responsive Records? PHIPA Decision 18
This decision involved a request under PHIPA made by a woman for hospital records relating to her son, who was killed in a motor vehicle accident. The hospital conducted a search and granted access to all the responsive records it located. The woman filed a complaint with the IPC in response to the hospital’s decision, alleging that she believed additional records should exist, including records relating to urine samples and tests. The IPC upheld the hospital’s search for records responsive to the woman’s request as reasonable, and dismissed the complaint.
While conducting its review of the complaint, the IPC requested that the hospital provide a sworn affidavit from the individual who conducted the searches, outlining the steps that were taken to locate the responsive records. The hospital provided an affidavit from its Manager of Health Records and Privacy (“Manager”), in which it was explained that the hospital provided the complainant with complete access to the information she sought, including her son’s entire chart. The Manager stated that the hospital had no record of a urine sample being taken and could not ascertain why the complainant believes that records relating to such urine sample exist. The Manager conceded that in the year that the records were created, the hospital had a different Laboratory Information System, which was no longer accessible, but submitted that it was not possible that the records the woman was seeking existed and were destroyed by the hospital. Despite the hospital’s repeated efforts, it did not locate a record of a urine sample being taken, a record of an order for a urinalysis, or a record of a urinalysis being performed.
The IPC explained that a reasonable search is one in which an experience employee, knowledgeable in the subject matter of the request, expends a reasonable effort to locate records which are reasonably related to the request. While there is no requirement that the health information custodian (“HIC”) prove with absolute certainty that further records do not exist, the HIC must provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate that it made a reasonable effort to identify and locate all of the responsive records within its custody or control. Responsive records are those that are “reasonably related” to the request. The IPC found that the hospital had discharged its onus to conduct a reasonable search in this case.
