Confidentiality and Sensitive Health Record Details

Your health record may include certain information marked as sensitive.

Depending on how your organization manages sensitivity settings, access to this information may be restricted at multiple levels:

• At the EHR level: Certain types of electronic health information (EHI), such as documentation, health conditions, and test results, can be marked as sensitive in the electronic health record (EHR), which is a digital version of a patient’s chart. When data is marked as sensitive in an EHR, it may not be accessible to anyone through the Patient Portal, including the patient or their authorized representatives (proxy users). For example, Behavioral Health Progress Notes that are labeled as confidential are not displayed in the portal.
• At the portal administration level: Your healthcare organization can further customize how sensitive health details are displayed:
  • Specific health record sections (like Documents or Test Results) may be hidden from authorized representatives (proxies) based on your organization's policies.
  • Test results and individual documents may also be delayed before being displayed in the portal, giving care teams the opportunity to review and discuss results with the patient first.

These settings determine what information is visible in the portal, but access can also depend on the type of person viewing the health record. Different rules apply based on the person's age and status:

• Protected minors: Protected minors are not yet legal adults but they can restrict parts of their health information from any authorized representatives (proxy users) with access to their profile. The exact age varies between jurisdictions, but for many the protected minor age starts at 13. Your organization might control how your organization's patient portal displays protected information to authorized representatives, but generally if a protected minor restricts sensitive data from view, authorized representatives cannot view that information.
• Managed adults: The adult age is the age at which a minor legally becomes an adult. By default, the adult age is 18, but this age might differ based on the law and your organization's settings and location. Patient portal users who are an adult age have full control of their information and can select which sections to restrict for any authorized representatives (proxy users) who can access their profile.