Privacy

Our Commitment to Your Privacy

Shoppers Drug Mart Specialty Health Network Inc. (“SHN”) is a provider of specialty drug distribution, pharmacy and comprehensive patient support services and serves as an administrator of various third party patient support programs. When you enroll in a patient support program administered by SHN, the enrollment form sets out the services offered by the program administrator, the purposes for which your information is collected, used and disclosed, how your information may be collected and identifies to whom your information may be disclosed and why. In the course of providing these services, we collect, use and disclose personal information, including medical information and financial information (collectively, “Personal Information”). The purpose of this privacy policy (“Policy”) is to inform you about our practices relating to the collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information as a recipient of our services. SHN is committed to keeping all your Personal Information confidential. It is our policy not to give, rent or sell any information that personally identifies a patient to any organization or individual without the patient's consent, except as permitted by law or as otherwise set out in this Policy.

What Personal Information is Collected and Why?

In order to provide you with our services, we require your Personal Information. The types of Personal Information that we may collect include:

• name
• mailing address
• email address
• telephone number
• date of birth
• height/weight
• gender
• medical conditions, including allergies and medical history
• prescriptions and prescription history
• information that relates to payments or eligibility for health care, or eligibility for coverage for health care,
• health number
• information that identifies an individual’s substitute decision-maker

This information is required so that we can:

• identify you and your substitute decision-maker, if any, individually, and communicate with you
• dispense and/or administer prescriptions and other medicine supplies to you
• counsel you about your medicine, medication program and health condition
• provide health care services to you
• help identify any possible drug interactions or allergic reactions to medications to help protect your health
• provide reimbursement assistance to you and provide your drug payment program with Personal Information in order to process claims
• provide you with additional health-related services, information and professional consultations which may be of assistance or of interest to you
• meet professional, legal and regulatory requirements

Your Personal Information is collected when you enroll in a patient support program administered by SHN and complete the enrollment and prescription form associated with that patient support program. It is also collected when you or your authorized representatives voluntarily provide it to us in the course of receiving our services. Your physician also provides us with Personal Information on the enrollment and prescription form so that we can administer the patient support program for which you have enrolled. In addition, when necessary, we may need to speak to your physician and other health care providers and care givers and various drug payment programs in order to obtain the information we need to be able to provide you with our services. In the course of providing services to you, your Personal Information may be collected, used and/or stored outside of your province/territory of residence.

Disclosure of Personal Health Information

Your Personal Information may be disclosed in the following circumstances:

• to your prescribing doctor or health care professional to confer with them about your medication, dosage, instructions and treatment, so that we may provide you with quality care and protect your health
• to public and private benefits providers when providing reimbursement services to you and to your drug payment program to enable them to accurately process your prescription claim for payment/reimbursement
• to anyone or any entity who is authorized by you and only for the limited purposes that you have permitted
• as required by law where the law requires us to do so.

SHN may share Personal Information with third parties who are engaged to assist us in providing services to you or to carry out one or more of the purposes described above. These service providers are prohibited from using your personal information for any purpose other than to provide this assistance and are required to protect Personal Information collected by them on behalf of SHN or disclosed to them by SHN or other health care providers in accordance with applicable law. In addition, we may use service providers to provide us with information systems used to maintain electronic databases of Personal Information. These service providers may require access to systems which contain Personal Information. These service providers are bound to keep all personal information confidential and to comply with applicable law.

SHN also reserves the right to disclose and/or transfer Personal Information to a third party in the event of a proposed or actual purchase, sale (including a liquidation, realization, foreclosure or repossession), lease, merger, amalgamation or any other type of acquisition, disposal, transfer, conveyance or financing of all or any portion of SHN or of any of the business or assets or shares of SHN or a division thereof in order for you to continue to receive the same products and services from the third party.

Consent

When you enroll in a patient support program administered by SHN, the purposes for which your information is collected, used and disclosed is described therein and your consent for such purposes is obtained at that time. SHN, as an administrator of that patient support program, is bound to comply with the consent parameters of the enrollment form, this Policy and applicable law.

You may withdraw your consent to the use of your Personal Information as set out in the patient support program enrollment form at any time by following the instructions for such withdrawal set out in the enrollment form.

Safeguards

SHN makes commercially reasonable efforts to ensure that Personal Information collected is protected against loss, theft and unauthorized access. This protection applies in relation to information stored in both electronic and hard copy form. SHN uses administrative, technological and physical measures to assist in protecting Personal Information against unauthorized access, disclosure, inappropriate alteration or misuse. In the course of providing services to you, your Personal Information may be collected, used and/or stored outside of your province/territory of residence. In the course of providing services to you, your Personal Information may be collected, used and/or stored outside of your province/territory of residence. Access to Personal Information is limited to only those employees requiring access in the performance of their duties, to any person or entity granted access by you through the consent process and to those otherwise authorized by law.

Retention

SHN retains your Personal Information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected and to comply with applicable laws and your consent to such purposes remains valid after termination of our relationship with you.

Cookies

We will be using a feature on your Internet browser called "cookies", which are files that your Internet browser puts on your hard drive. We will use cookies to help us provide you with a better experience when you visit the SHN web site. It will let us know that you are a prior visitor and it will help us retrieve information that you may have previously provided to us. Your Internet browser should allow you to erase cookies from your hard drive, block all cookies or receive a warning before a cookie is stored.

Access and Inquiries or Concerns

You have the right to know what Personal Information is held in SHN’s files and electronic databases and have the right to question and request correction of any erroneous information. To access your file, a written request should be sent to the Privacy Officer for SHN. All written requests will be responded to within a reasonable time frame. All necessary and reasonable corrections to your file will be made.

SHN maintains a privacy program that is led by the Chief Privacy Officer of Loblaw Companies Limited. Any questions relating to your Personal Information or to SHN’s personal information handling practices should be directed to:

Attention: Chief Privacy Officer, Loblaw Companies Limited
Phone: 1-855-416-1244
Email: loblawprivacy@loblaw.ca
Address: Loblaw Privacy Office, 1 President’s Choice Circle, Brampton, ON L6Y 5S5

Changes to this Privacy Policy

SHN reserves the right to modify this Policy at anytime without notice to reflect changes in legal or regulatory obligations or changes in the manner in which we deal with Personal Information. The Privacy Policy posted at any time or from time to time on the SHN website shall be deemed to be the Privacy Policy then in effect.

Last Updated: Aug 16, 2022