Ontario Laboratories Information System (OLIS)
Hospitals, community laboratories and other health care providers that have authority to access OLIS can use it to collect, use and disclose lab requisitions and results electronically. In particular, OLIS may be used by health care providers involved in your care to access and transmit your lab test information to one another. Access to OLIS will permit the timely sharing of your test results between a laboratory and your health care providers, to facilitate the provision of health care to you.
What if I don’t want my information in the Ontario Laboratories Information System (OLIS) to be shared with the Ministry or health care providers?
You may withdraw your consent to the use of your personal health information by the Ministry and eHealth Ontario, and the Ministry’s disclosure of your personal health information to health care providers, other than the provider who ordered the test. Under the Laboratory and Specimen Collection Centre Licensing Act, laboratories are required, by law, to provide your test results to the provider who ordered the test and therefore you may not withdraw your consent to this disclosure of your test results.
Although the Ministry will have custody and control of your lab test information in OLIS, the Ministry and health care providers will not access any of your information through OLIS, which you have already ‘blocked’ through a previous submission of a withdrawal of consent form. If the existing block only applies to a particular lab test order, all of your other information that may be in OLIS remains accessible to the Ministry and health care providers involved in your care, unless you make a new request for withdrawal of consent.
Withdrawal of Consent
In order to do this, you can either complete a withdrawal of consent form and submit it to a participating OLIS laboratory when you have a test done, or you can contact Service Ontario at 1-800-291-1405 (TTY : 1-800-268-7095), at your convenience. This type of restriction means that, other than the health care provider(s) identified on the applicable lab order (i.e. the ordering physician(s)), the Ministry and Ontario health care providers involved in your care will not be able to access any of your information that has been, or will be, submitted into OLIS. Please see the following Question and Answer about reinstating consent.
You can do this by completing a withdrawal of consent form and submitting it to a participating OLIS laboratory when you have the test done (note that only some laboratories have the necessary technology to do this). Note that technical limitations in OLIS require the restriction to be applied not only to the specific test but also to all other tests that may be included in that particular lab order. Under this type of restriction, other than the health care provider(s) identified on the lab order (i.e. the ordering physician(s)), the Ministry and Ontario health care providers will not be able to access the test results associated with that lab order. Please check with your laboratory in order to determine whether it is able to apply a test-specific restriction for you. Please see the following Question and Answer about reinstating consent.