[Verified Answer]: reply to this post 1

reply to this post 1. What constitutes “Personal Health Information”? Personal health information is any identifying information about clients that is in verbal, written or electronic form. This includes information relating to a patients physical or mental health, family health history, care provided, plan of service, payments or eligibility for health care, donation of body parts or substances (e.g., blood), a person’s health number, or the name of a client’s substitute decision-maker (College of Nurses of Ontario, 2025). Personal health information is broad, covering any detail that links an individual to their health status or care. 2. What are some examples of how confidentiality and privacy can be breached? Data privacy and confidentiality are important considerations when accessing sensitive information such as personal health data (Hardy, 2024). The Canadian Nurses Protective Society (CNPS) attests that privacy issues relating to personal health records (PHR’s) include unauthorized access to health information, loss or theft of devices, and inappropriate use or disclosure (2025). Examples of such breaches include snooping on records without authority, discussing patient details in public, technological breaches (cyber-attacks), the loss or theft of unencrypted devices, improperly disposing of paper files, and leaving unlocked computers unattended in patient areas.