Sinai Health Bioethics Grand Rounds | Virtual

This event is part of National Health Ethics Week! 

Topic

Privacy in the Age of Smartphones: Responding to Patient and Visitor Recordings

Speaker

Jessica Cesario
Director, Privacy and Information Access, Sinai Health 

Abstract

This presentation explores the ethical, privacy and practical considerations that arise when patients or visitors request to audio or video record their clinical interactions in a hospital setting. The session will cover frequently asked questions from hospital peers and introduce a practical tip sheet developed by the Sinai Health Privacy Office to support consistent, respectful and practical responses to these types of requests. 

By the end of this session, participants will:

• Understand that while patients cannot generally be prevented from recording, there are often strategies to address these requests in a way that respects patient rights and supports staff comfort and safety.
• Gain familiarity with practical approaches and tools, including a tip sheet developed by the Privacy Office, to guide consistent responses to recording requests.
• Feel more confident and prepared to handle real-time requests for audio or video recording in clinical settings. 

Jessica Cesario is a privacy professional with 10 years of experience in health administration. Having worked in other Ontario hospital settings, she is skilled at delivering practical and pragmatic health privacy support to patients and our people, managing hospital privacy programs, assessing privacy impacts and gaps, working collaboratively with key stakeholders to embed privacy into projects and workflows, and performing legislative analysis on a range of complex privacy matters. 

Jessica holds a bachelor of health administration from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) and is a Certified Health Information Management (CHIM) Professional and Certified Information Privacy Professional/Canada (CIPP/C).