Terms of Use

1. Introduction and purpose

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) govern your individual access to, and use of, the OnSPARK Portal (the “Portal”), a secure, web-based application operated as part of the OnSPARK Long-Term Care (LTC) Data Platform (“OnSPARK”). OnSPARK is anchored at St. Joseph's Health System Centre for Integrated Care, which is responsible for administration and coordination, and at McMaster University, which is responsible for data governance, security, and compliance.

You are receiving access to the Portal because you are an employee or other authorized personnel of a long-term care home or authorized sector partner that participates in OnSPARK (your “Home” or “Organization”) and whose Home has executed a Data Sharing Agreement (“DSA”) with McMaster University. These Terms govern your conduct as an individual user of the Portal. They do not amend, replace, or override your Home's DSA, which separately governs the disclosure, custody, and institutional use of your Home's data.

By creating a Portal account, or by logging in and using the Portal, you accept these Terms in full, including its schedules, each of which forms part of, and is incorporated into, these Terms. If you do not agree, do not access or use the Portal.

2. Definitions

  • OnSPARK: The Ontario Supporting Partnerships to Advance Care and Knowledge in Long-Term Care Data Platform is Ontario's sector-governed learning health system for long-term care. 

  • St. Joseph's Health System Centre for Integrated Care: The host institution for OnSPARK responsible for administration and coordination.

  • McMaster University: The host institution for OnSPARK responsible for data governance, security, and compliance.

  • Portal: The web-accessible, cloud-hosted application covered by these Terms. The Portal is the data interface between OnSPARK and Homes, the Ministry, and other approved parties. The Portal does not provide Users with access to resident-level personal health information, staff-level personal information, free-text clinical notes, or raw identifiable clinical records. The Portal instead presents de-identified, aggregated, and/or home/unit level information that has been prepared for Portal use.

  • Secure Server: The separate, on-premises OnSPARK environment operated by McMaster University's Computing Services Unit, which holds personal health information (PHI) and other confidential data. The Secure Server is outside the scope of these Terms; its governance is addressed in your Home's Data Sharing Agreement and in OnSPARK's Data Governance Policy.

  • Home / Organization: The long-term care home or operating organization that employs or engages you and that has executed a DSA with McMaster University.

  • Health Information Custodian (HIC): A Home or other institution that contributes and manages personal health information in compliance with the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA).

  • User / you / your: An individual authorized by a Home to access the Portal under these Terms, including care staff, quality leads, administrators, and other authorized personnel.

  • Indicators: The de-identified, aggregate, and home-level information made available to you through the Portal, as distinct from the raw or identifiable clinical data held on the Secure Server.

  • Authorized purpose: The purpose(s) for which you are permitted to access and use the Portal, as described in Section 7 (Permitted Use of the Portal) and consistent with your role at your Home.

  • Ministry / MLTC: The Ontario Ministry of Long-Term Care.

  • Ontario Health / OH: Ontario Health

  • Executive Governing Council (the “Council”): The primary governing body of the OnSPARK platform. It provides strategic leadership, oversight, and accountability to ensure OnSPARK operates as a trusted, sector-governed learning health system for long-term care.

  • Data Sharing Agreement (DSA): The Data Sharing Agreement between your Home and McMaster University governing the disclosure and institutional use of your Home's data.

  • Schedule: An appendix to these Terms that forms part of, and is incorporated by reference into, these Terms.

3. Relationship to your home's data sharing agreement

Your ability to hold a Portal account depends on your Home having a valid, executed Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) with McMaster University. These Terms govern your individual access to and use of the Portal. Your Home's DSA governs the relationship between your Home and McMaster University concerning the disclosure, custody, governance, and institutional use of your Home's data. Nothing in these Terms amends, replaces, or overrides the DSA.

If a provision of these Terms is inconsistent with a provision of the DSA concerning the institutional disclosure, custody, governance, or use of Home data, the DSA will govern that institutional relationship.  If your Home's DSA is suspended or terminated, your access to the Portal will be suspended or terminated accordingly, regardless of your individual standing under these Terms.

4. Eligibility and account access

Access to the Portal is limited to authorized personnel of a Home with an executed DSA, and to other individuals or organizations specifically approved under OnSPARK's governance and authorized OnSPARK team members.

4.2 Registration and account security

You must:

•     register using accurate, individually identifiable credentials — shared or generic logins are not permitted;

•     maintain the confidentiality of your login credentials and any multi-factor authentication method tied to your account;

•     notify OnSPARK immediately at support@onspark.ca if you suspect unauthorized access to, or use of, your account; and

•     log out of the Portal when using a shared or public device.

4.3 Provisioning and deactivation

Your Home's organizational owner is responsible for requesting your account and for deactivating your account when required, including on a change of role or end of employment. OnSPARK may also independently deactivate an account that appears unused, compromised, or inconsistent with these Terms.

5. What the Portal Is — and is not

The Portal is a dashboard that turns data your Home already collects into unit-level and home-level insights, so that your Home can benchmark performance, understand care outcomes, support operational decisions and plan workforce needs. The Portal is not a clinical record system and does not provide access to raw resident-level records, staff-level records, free-text clinical notes, or other personal health information. Data on the Portal has been de-identified, aggregated, or otherwise vetted before it is made available .

Access to your own Home's data through the Portal is governed by your role, your organization's affiliation, and your authorized purpose. You do not have access to another Home's identifiable information unless that Home has given specific, revocable authorization, or unless disclosure is otherwise required by law.

6. Use of artificial intelligence in platform development

OnSPARK's developers use artificial intelligence (AI) tools, for example, for coding assistance, testing, and documentation to support the development and maintenance of the Portal. These tools support how the Portal is built; they are not used to process, analyze, or generate insights from the Data displayed on the Portal. Any future use of AI to process Data would require prior approval by OnSPARK's Executive Governing Council and would be communicated to Users.

7. Permitted use of the Portal

You may access and use the Portal, within your authorized role, strictly to:

  • view and interpret your Home's own performance, quality, and workforce data;

  • support quality improvement, care planning, operations, and staffing decisions at your Home;

  • benchmark your Home's performance against anonymized, aggregate peer comparisons made available on the Portal; and

  • carry out any other use specifically authorized in writing by OnSPARK or by your Home.

8. Prohibited use of the Portal

You must not:

  • attempt to access, or assist another person in accessing, another Home's identifiable data without that Home's specific authorization;

  • attempt to re-identify individuals from de-identified or aggregate data;

  • share your login credentials or multi-factor authentication method with any other person;

  • use automated tools (scraping, bulk export, or similar) to extract Portal data beyond normal, authorized use;

  • attempt to probe, scan, or circumvent the Portal's security controls;

  • use Portal data for commercial gain or product development without OnSPARK's explicit permission; or

  • disclose, republish, or redistribute Portal data outside your Organization except as your role authorizes.

Violations may result in suspension or termination of your Portal access under Section 18, and, where warranted, referral to your Home and to OnSPARK's Executive Governing Council.

9. Data confidentiality

Information available through the Portal may be confidential and may include information that identifies or distinguishes individual long-term care homes or operating organizations. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of information you access through the Portal.

You must not disclose confidential Portal information to:

  • individuals who are not authorized to receive it;

  • other long-term care organizations without appropriate authorization;

  • external organizations or individuals without appropriate authorization; or

  • public forums, social media, websites, or other publicly accessible platforms.

If you are uncertain whether information may be shared, do not disclose it until appropriate authorization has been confirmed.

10. Downloading, copying, and storing Portal information

Where Portal functionality permits information to be downloaded, exported, copied, or otherwise saved, you remain responsible for protecting that information after it leaves the Portal.  You must:

  • store information only in organizationally approved locations;

  • apply the same or equivalent confidentiality and security protections to downloaded information as apply to information within the Portal;

  • limit access to individuals who are authorized to receive the information;

  • avoid creating unnecessary copies of Portal information; and

  • securely delete or dispose of copies when they are no longer required, in accordance with your Home's requirements.

Downloading or exporting information does not create additional rights to use or disclose that information.

11. Data quality and limitations

OnSPARK data and analytics are intended to support informed quality improvement, operational decision-making, and sector learning. You should exercise appropriate professional and organizational judgment when interpreting or acting on information available through the Portal.

Portal information may be subject to limitations relating to data completeness, timeliness, accuracy, source-system differences, reporting practices, or other factors. Where limitations are identified or communicated by OnSPARK, take them into account when interpreting the information. Portal information should not be treated as a substitute for professional judgment, clinical assessment, organizational processes, or other required sources of information.

12. Data ownership and intellectual property

Data displayed on the Portal remains the property of the contributing Home (as HIC), consistent with your Home's DSA. The Portal's software, interface, design, and OnSPARK branding are owned by OnSPARK and its host institutions. These Terms grant you a limited, non-transferable right to use the Portal for the permitted purposes in Section 7; they do not grant you any ownership interest in the Portal or in aggregated analyses OnSPARK produces from Data, or to OnSPARK as an organization as a whole. Aggregated, de-identified analyses may be used by OnSPARK to generate insights and reports, with appropriate attribution to contributing Homes.

13. Privacy

OnSPARK's Privacy Policy describes how information is collected, used, and safeguarded, including through the Portal.

Security

OnSPARK applies administrative, technical, and data-level safeguards to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information maintained within the Portal, including:

  • role-based access controls;

  • password-protected, individually identifiable access;

  • encryption in transit and at rest;

  • controlled access provisioning and role changes; and

  • periodic security assessments.

  • Mandatory multi-factor authentication (MFA).

  • Auto sign-out of inactive sessions.

  • Proactive security and vulnerability monitoring.

You are an important part of maintaining the security of the Portal and are expected to follow these Terms and any applicable security instructions provided by OnSPARK.

Cookies and analytics

  • OnSPARK uses cookies and third-party analytics tools to understand how authorized Users interact with the Portal, monitor performance, and improve usability.

  • These tools may collect technical information such as IP address, browser type, device type, pages visited, and time spent on the Portal.

  • Usage data collected through these tools is analyzed in aggregate and is never linked to, or never combined with, the de-identified health or facility Data handled by the Platform.

  • You may limit or disable cookies through your browser settings; some Portal features may not function properly as a result.

14. Monitoring and audit

Portal access and activity may be logged and monitored for purposes including:

  • security;

  • access control;

  • system administration;

  • investigation of suspected or actual unauthorized access or use;

  • compliance monitoring; and

  • accountability.

OnSPARK may review access activity where reasonably necessary to investigate security concerns, suspected misuse, compliance issues, or other matters relating to the proper operation and governance of the Portal.

15. Research and publication

These Terms do not, by themselves, authorize you to conduct research using OnSPARK data. Any research, publication, external dissemination, or other use of Portal information beyond your Authorized Purpose must receive any additional approvals required under applicable agreements, OnSPARK governance processes, privacy requirements, research ethics approvals, and your Home's own policies.

Where a proposed activity requires access to information beyond what is available to you through the Portal, follow the applicable OnSPARK data access process.

16. Suspension and termination of access

OnSPARK may suspend or terminate your individual Portal access, at its discretion, if you breach these Terms, if your role or employment with your Home changes, or if your Home requests deactivation of your account. This is separate from, and does not itself affect, your Home's underlying DSA; likewise, suspension or termination of your Home's DSA will result in suspension or termination of your Portal access under Section 3.

17. Availability and changes to the Portal

OnSPARK may modify, update, suspend, or temporarily make unavailable the Portal or particular Portal functionality where reasonably necessary for purposes including maintenance, security, system updates, data updates, or operational requirements. OnSPARK will make reasonable efforts to maintain the availability and functionality of the Portal but does not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free access.

18. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

The Portal and the Data made available through it are provided “as is,” without warranty regarding completeness, accuracy, or uninterrupted availability. To the extent permitted by law, OnSPARK, its host institutions, and contributing Homes are not liable for damages arising from your use, or inability to use, the Portal. You remain responsible for using the Portal consistent with these Terms, your Home's own policies, and applicable law.

19. Amendments to these terms

OnSPARK may revise these Terms.  OnSPARK will notify Users of material changes, and your acceptance (including the date and time you accepted) is recorded against your account. Where a change materially affects your responsibilities, OnSPARK may require you to review and accept the updated Terms before continuing to access the Portal; otherwise, continued use of the Portal after notice of a change constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

21. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein.

22. Contact information

For technical support with the Portal, or for questions about these Terms or OnSPARK's privacy practices, contact support@onspark.ca.