What the Gmail sidebar reads, what it sends to OHS, what it keeps, where, and for how long.
Last updated: October 27, 2026 · Version 1.0 · This page is part of the OHS Trust Centre and adds to the OHS Privacy page. Where the two differ about the sidebar, this page governs.
The sidebar tells OHS who handled an email.
Never what it says.
Reads. The sender, subject and Gmail IDs on your screen. Your Gmail address is checked on your computer and never sent.
Sends. Gmail IDs and your own actions, only to your clinic's OHS address.
Keeps on your computer. Your sign-in session and your Chrome profile's approval. Never patient information or email content.
Keeps at OHS. An activity record in your clinic's own OHS account, hosted in Canada.
OHS Express Inbox for Gmail is a Chrome extension published by OHS Flow. It adds a sidebar to Gmail for staff at clinics that use OHS, so the clinic can see who is handling which email, sort mail by priority, and keep an email on someone's desk until it is answered.
It is used by clinic staff, on the clinic's own mailbox, at the clinic's direction. The clinic is the custodian of the information in its mailbox; OHS is the clinic's service provider and handles that information only for the clinic. This page explains what the sidebar reads, what it sends to OHS, what it keeps on your computer, what OHS keeps on its servers, for how long, and what OHS does not do.
If you are a patient or a family member, nothing on this page asks you to do anything. Your clinic decides how your information is handled; requests about your information go to your clinic.
When a staff member opens Gmail on the clinic's connected mailbox, the sidebar asks them to pick their name and sign in. From then on, it shows OHS information beside the open email — its priority, its category, who has it on their desk, its history, and which patient chart it matches — and lets the staff member resolve the email, put it back for someone else, or forward it to a team at the clinic. Each of those actions is recorded in the clinic's OHS account so the clinic knows the email was handled, and by whom.
The sidebar works only on Gmail tabs, and only when the Gmail account signed in on that tab is the clinic's connected mailbox. On any other Google account it stays out of the way.
To do its job, the sidebar reads a few things from the Gmail page you are looking at:
The sidebar never changes your Gmail: it does not change labels, does not mark mail read or unread, and does not alter, delete or send any message on its own. It does not read your Google account, your contacts, your calendar or any other site.
The sidebar talks only to your clinic's own OHS address (for example, your clinic's OHS site). It sets no cookies and contains no advertising, analytics or tracking code from anyone else.
| What is sent | Why | What OHS keeps |
|---|---|---|
| A one-time approval code for your Chrome profile, with a random secret made on your computer | So your clinic's administrator (Tier 0) can approve the browser profile the sidebar runs in, one profile at a time | The code and a one-way hash of the secret, until the approval is removed by your clinic's administrator. An approval request that is never approved is replaced after 24 hours |
| Your chosen staff name and your password or 4-digit PIN | To sign you in | Used for that one sign-in only. The sidebar does not store your password or PIN. Your clinic's OHS account holds them the way any sign-in does: never in readable form |
| A session token | To keep you signed in during your shift | Until you sign out, switch person, close the last Chrome window, or sit idle past your clinic's limit |
| Gmail message and thread identifiers of the email you open or act on | So OHS can show you that email's priority, status and history, and record what you did with it | As part of the activity record (§6) |
| Your actions in the sidebar — opened, resolved, released (mark unread), forwarded, signed out, idle, switched person | So the clinic knows the email was handled and by whom | As part of the activity record (§6) |
| Notes you type when forwarding an email to a team at your clinic | To send with the forward | Kept with the forward record in your clinic's OHS account and sent to the team you chose |
Not sent: the email's subject, the sender, the email's content, your Gmail address, your password or PIN as stored values, anything from any other site.
While you are signed in, the sidebar receives from OHS and displays the open email's priority and category, its status, who has it on their desk, its history at the clinic, the clinic's forward teams, the patient chart it matches (the child's name and chart number, from the clinic's own patient roster in OHS), and how often the sender has written. This is clinic information, shown to you because you are signed in as clinic staff. The sidebar keeps it in memory only; none of it is written to Chrome's storage and it is gone when the sidebar closes.
The sidebar's records live in your clinic's own OHS account — a database that holds only that clinic's information, hosted in Canada. OHS keeps, for the sidebar:
How long. Activity and forward records are kept for as long as your clinic uses OHS. When the clinic's agreement with OHS ends, or when the clinic asks, they are deleted with the rest of the clinic's OHS data. OHS does not apply an automatic shorter deletion period to these records today; if your clinic sets a retention period for them, that period applies and this page will say so.
Who can see the activity record. Your clinic's owner and managers, through the clinic's OHS account, and OHS support staff when the clinic asks for help. Records are visible per staff member because that is what they are for; your clinic's own policy on electronic monitoring describes how it uses them.
| Where in Chrome | What | How long |
|---|---|---|
| Extension storage (IndexedDB) | The approval code and secret for your Chrome profile, per clinic | Until the extension is removed, or the approval is replaced |
| Session storage | Your staff session: token, staff id, name and initials, clinic, and the session's limits | Until you sign out or switch person, the idle limit is reached, or the last Chrome window is closed. Nothing survives a Chrome restart |
| Local storage | The clinic you picked in the extension's options | Until you change it or remove the extension |
Never stored on your computer by the sidebar: patient information, email content, subjects, senders, your Gmail address, your password or PIN.
Removing the extension clears everything it stored in Chrome.
The Chrome Web Store asks every extension to say which kinds of data it handles. Here is what each box means for this sidebar:
| Disclosure | What it refers to here |
|---|---|
| Personally identifiable information | Your staff name and initials; the sender shown in the Gmail row the sidebar reads on your screen |
| Health information | The sidebar runs on a medical clinic's mailbox. The emails it tracks may contain health information; the chart match it displays names a patient; a note you type when forwarding may describe a patient's situation |
| Authentication information | Your staff sign-in (name plus password or PIN, used once per sign-in), your session token, and the browser-profile approval secret |
| Personal communications | The clinic's emails: the sidebar reads identifiers, sender and subject on the Gmail page and sends identifiers to OHS so the email's handling can be tracked |
| User activity | What you do in the sidebar — open, resolve, release, forward, sign out, switch, idle — recorded for the clinic |
| Website content | What the sidebar reads from the Gmail page to work (§3) |
| Financial and payment information | Not collected |
| Location | Not collected. The sidebar does not ask for or use your location |
| Web history | Not collected. The sidebar runs only on Gmail tabs and reads nothing about other sites |
OHS uses the information above for one purpose: to run the sidebar for your clinic, as the clinic directs.
OHS does not:
OHS's use of information received from Google APIs — your clinic's connected mailbox — adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. The mailbox connection itself is made by your clinic, not by the sidebar, and is described on the OHS Privacy page.
When the sidebar changes what it reads, sends or stores, this page changes with it, with a new version number and date. Earlier versions are kept.
Questions about this page or the sidebar:
OHS (Optimized Health Solutions), Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The person responsible for the protection of personal information at OHS can be reached at the same address.