The role of the department is for training, monitoring the system and for quality control. There must be a policy broadly stated for government and more specific guidelines for departments. SH - need a person or group in the department to coordinate and make the decision to release information. Also need to coordinate between departments. AL - there is an accrediting body for health care professionals and one group is defined as information management and they have a set of standards.
Hospitals are similar to the provincial government.
Sharing information in the hospitals is working fine. DC - need to have coordination within departments too. Want to bring up client profiles to see all the programs clients are using need to have a decision on who has access to the information on the clients. Try to share the information but not everyone may buy into the concept. CH - this ties in to government attitudes and the government culture.