Health information is considered de-identified if it cannot be used to identify an individual. Other terms for de-identified health information are:
- Anonymous
- Aggregated
- Scrubbed
The Privacy Regulation details the specific individual information that needs to be removed from PHI for it to qualify as de-identified.
When PHI is de-identified, it is no longer considered protected.
De-identified health information should be used whenever individual patient identification is unnecessary.
