Articles 2024

In this edition of the OBA Health Law’s Section Insider, we spoke with the 2024 recipient of the Susan Davidson Memorial Award for Excellence in Health Law, Justice Ira Parghi. Here’s what she had to say.

In this edition of the OBA Health Law’s Section Insider, we spoke with those who participated in nominating Kate Dewhirst, the 2023 recipient of the Susan Davidson Memorial Award for Excellence in Health Law. Kate is the founder of the law firm, Kate Dewhirst Health Law. Kate advises health care organizations on risk management, privacy, system integration, and credentialing issues.

It is widely understood that professional services and health care are among the most common industries targeted by cyber attacks, which puts law firms practicing health law squarely in the crosshairs of cyber criminals. This “cheat sheet” document is intended to provide some practical suggestions for health law practitioners to consider when contemplating the increasingly thorny area of electronic data management and cyber security.

This article summarizes an important medical negligence class proceeding decision that addresses the use of circumstantial evidence to support findings of negligence and discusses common, class-wide findings of breach of the standard of care and causation. The Court of Appeal approved of the lower court’s reliance on statistical evidence with respect to rates of infection and agreed that there was a causal link between the class members’ infections and the Defendant’s subpar IPAC practices.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has proposed changes to its registration policies to encourage more US-trained physicians to practice in Ontario. This article briefly highlights the different pathways through which physicians may become registered to practice in Ontario. The proposed policies are not yet in force and, for now, the old pathways still apply.

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (the "AODA") was enacted with the goal of creating an accessible Ontario by 2025. In 2017, the Health Care Standards Development Committee was asked to develop recommendations for a new accessibility health care standard. The Committee recently published their final recommendations, with broad implications on the health care sector.