Storage and Return of Student Documentation from Clinical Partners Policy

AC-OCE-POL-008
Storage and Return of Student Documentation from Clinical Partners Policy
DepartmentAcademic/Clinical Education
Creation DateMarch 27, 2013
Approval DateApril 16, 2020
Effective DateSeptember 8, 2020

Organizational Scope

The Policy applies to all full-time and part-time programs with clinical components offered in The Michener Institute of Education at UHN (“Michener”).

Purpose

In keeping with privacy law and accreditation requirements, Michener considers all student documentation to be confidential personal information. All official documentation related to students while undertaking their clinical experience must be treated in accordance with privacy law.

Definitions

Documentation related to students while undertaking their clinical experience refers to all documentation, regardless of the medium or format, pertaining to students’ personal information or academic performance. Documentation may include but not be limited to:

  • Personal information pertaining to students including home and e-mail addresses, or telephone numbers but does not apply to to any records collected and retained by the site for the purposes of onboarding
  • Academic documentation pertaining to students including completed evaluations, log books, attendance records, notes on student performance, learning plans or incident reports

Policy

All hard copy and electronic documentation pertaining to clinical students, regardless of placement site or rotation must be:

  1. securely stored in a locked drawer or filing cabinet at the clinical site where students are currently placed
  2. returned to Michener or deleted from the site’s computer system within one month following the end of a student’s clinical base placement or specialty rotation
  3. maintained by the program for one-year post-convocation. Hard copies of the documents will be shredded and electronic copies deleted at this time.

MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES:

The Manager, Clinical Education Relations, is to ensure that all stakeholders, including new and current clinical partners/coordinators are made aware of this policy.

CONSEQUENCES:

It is critical that all clinical partners follow this policy as it pertains to personal information bound by privacy legislation. Non-compliance of this policy may result in confidential student-related information becoming accessible to others with implications ranging from, breach of affiliation agreements and loss of placement opportunities to potential loss of program accreditation status.

Associated Documentation

Revision History

Date Reviewer Change(s) Made
March 23, 2016 Don Bartlett Document reviewed - no changes required
June 28, 2018 Don Bartlett Document reviewed - no changes required
April 16, 2020 Ray Nielsen Addition of document retention timeline and clarification that information collected for the purposes of onboarding is exempt