Personal Information, Privacy and your Doctor
‘Your Privacy is our Business’
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
Aim
This leaflet aims to explain clearly how personal information about
you and your health is recorded and managed in this practice. Your doctor
will be happy to discuss this with you.
Your Personal Health Information
Your doctor needs information about your past and present health in
order to provide you with high quality care. This practice will make
sure that you are able to discuss your health with your doctor in private.
Information is called “personal health information” if it
concerns your health, medical history or past or future medical care
and if someone reading it would be able to identify you.
This practice follows the “Code of practice for the Management
of Health Information in Medical Practices” developed by the Royal
Australian College of General Practitioners. This means that your personal
health information is kept private and secure. The approach used in
Code is consistent with the provisions of Federal and State Legislation.
The practice has a written policy on personal health information
- this policy is available to all patients for inspection.
Your Medical Records
Your doctor will do his/her best to make sure that
your medical records:
• are accurate, comprehensive, well-organized and legible;
• are up to date;
• have enough information to allow another doctor to care for
you;
• do not contain offensive or irrelevant comments about you;
• contain a summary of your care; and
• can be used to remind you, with your permission, to return for
follow up, checkups and reviews.
Your doctor will only collect information which is relevant to your
medical care. If you are uncertain as to why information is being requested,
ask your doctor.
Providing your information to other doctors
The doctor(s) in this practice respect your right to decide how your
personal health information is used or disclosed (for example to other
doctors). In all but exceptional circumstances, personal information
that identifies you will be sent to other people only with your consent.
Gaining your consent is the guiding principle.
It is important that others people involved in your care, such as other
doctors, are informed of relevant parts of your medical history so they
can best care for you. After discussion with you, your doctor will write
a letter to the other doctor, which will either be posted or given to
you to take to them. If you have any concerns about this discuss them
with your doctor.
In most group practices, it is customary for all doctors in the practice
to have access to all the medical records. If you have any concerns
about other doctors at this practice being able to see your records
discuss your concerns with your doctor.
Providing your information to others
Your doctor will not disclose your personal health
information to a third party unless:
• you have consented to the disclosure; or
• this disclosure is necessary because you are at risk of harm
without treatment and you are unable to give consent – for example
you might be unconscious after an accident; or
• your doctor is legally obliged to disclose the information (e.g.
notification of certain infectious diseases or suspended child abused,
or a subpoena or court order); or
• the information is necessary to obtain Medicare payments or
other health insurance rebates; or
• this disclosure is necessary for the doctors in the practice
for carry out a review of their practice for the purpose of improving
the quality of care provided and the activity has been approved under
Commonwealth or State legislation or by a medical College. This provides
safeguards to protect the confidentiality of the information provided;
or
• there is an overriding public interest in the release of the
above cases only information.
In any of the above cases only information which is necessary to achieve
the objective will be provided.
Using health information for quality improvement and research
We use patient health information to assist in
improving the quality of care we give to all our patients by reviewing
the treatments used in the practice.
We may also use information that does not identify you in research projects
to improve health care in the community. You will normally be informed
if your information is to be used for this purpose and will have the
opportunity to refuse to have your unidentified information used in
this way.
In some circumstances, where the research serves an important public
interest, identifiable medical records can be used for medical research
without your consent under guidelines issued by the National Health
and Medical Research Council. This research must be approved by an official
ethics committee.
Wherever practicable, the information used for research will not be
in a form that would enable you to be identified. The publication of
research results which use your information will never be in a form
that enables you to be identified.
Security of information in the practice
Many medical practice will transfer their medical records to computer
system in the next few years. We will ensure that any of your personal
information that is put on computer will be kept private in the same
way as occurs with paper records. This will protect your records from
unauthorized access.
Your access to your health information
You have access to the information contained in
your medical record. You may ask your doctor about any aspect of your
health care including information in your record. We believe that sharing
information is important for good communication between you and the
doctor and for good health care.
Information in your records can be provided to you by way of an accurate
and up to date summary of your care, for instance if you are moving
away and are transferring to a new doctor. Do not hesitate to ask your
doctor if you want a summary of your care for any reason. If you request
summary or direct access to your full medical record your doctor will
need to take out any information provided by others on a confidential
basis. Your doctor will also need to consider the risk of any physical
or mental harm to you or any other person which may result from disclosure
of your health information.
Your doctor will be pleased to provide a full explanation of the health
summary of medical record provided.
Depending on what is involved, you may be asked to contribute to the
cost of providing the information.
Resolving your concerns regarding the privacy of your health information
If you have any concerns regarding the privacy of your health information
or regarding the accuracy of the information held by the practice, you
should discuss these with your doctor. Inaccurate information will be
corrected of your concerns noted in the records if it is not possible
or desirable to alter the original record.
Further information on Privacy Legislation is available from:
Office of the Federal Privacy Commissioner
1300 363 992
Office of Health Service Commissioner
(Victoria) 1800 136 066
Community and Health Services Complaints
Office (ACT) 02 6205 2222
Office of the NSW Privacy Commissioner
02 9268 5588
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