Privacy Policy for Consumers

Privacy Policy for Consumers
My eHealth Record

For more information on My eHealth Recordvisit or
telephone 1800 247 430

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My eHEALTH RECORD

My eHealth Record provides consumers with a way of securely storing and sharing important health information with their consent, so that it can be accessed easily and quickly when needed for their ongoing care at participating healthcare facilities, eg health centres, GPs and public hospitals.

My eHealth Record aims to improve the quality, safety, coordination and efficiency of health service delivery by enabling participating healthcare providers across the public and private health care sectors to share and access important health information easily, quickly and securely using an e-health solution integrated into the participating healthcare providers’ clinical information systems, whilst ensuring the privacy of confidential health information is appropriately protected.

My eHealth Record is operated by eHealthNT, Northern Territory Department of Health in collaboration with the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance of the Northern Territory,Northern Territory Medicare Local, Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia and WA Country Health Service.

With financial assistance from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing under arrangements oversighted by the National eHealth Transition Authority (NEHTA),My eHealth Record is implementing key foundations to ensure healthcare providers and consumers who take part will be able to participate in the national personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) system when it is available.

This My eHealth Record Privacy Policy applies to the collection, use, disclosure and other handling of your personal information (including health information) in relation to the creation and maintenance of your record as a registered consumer in My eHealth Record.

PRIVACY OBLIGATIONS

eHealthNT takes its privacy obligations very seriously and takes all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information (including health information) is dealt with in accordance with all relevant privacy laws and this My eHealth RecordPrivacy Policy.

More information on My eHealth Recordis contained in the following documents which are available on our website at:

Better Health Care with My eHealth Recordinformation leaflet; and
My eHealth Record Privacy Manual.

PRIVACY

This policy describes the way that eHealthNT collects, holds, uses, discloses and otherwise handles information about individuals who have sought, or who are, registered consumers for My eHealth Record. eHealthNT is subject to the Information Act (NT) and in relation to consumer health information held in My eHealth Record agrees together with all participating healthcare providers to comply with the National Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) as the minimum standard for privacy compliance for My eHealth Record participants. eHealthNT may vary this policy from time to time.

REGISTRATION

If you are 16 years and over you may register for My eHealth Recordby completing a Consumer Registration Form and forwarding it to the eHealthNT Office. Parents or legal guardians can register children under the age of 16 years in their care. For persons who are 16 years and over and lack the capacity to make decisions for themselves, applications may be made on their behalf by their legal guardian. Registration is voluntary and free. Registration forms are available from the My eHealth Record website and participating healthcare providers.

More information on registration and consent process is set out in theBetter Health Care with My eHealth Record information leaflet available on our website at:

WHAT INFORMATION WILL BE IN MY RECORD IN MY EHEALTH RECORD?

Your record in My eHealth Record stores a summary of the important information collected by a participating healthcare provider during a healthcare event. The summary is created at the conclusion of each healthcare event for sending to your record in My eHealth Record.

The type of information in a summary may include:

adverse reactions,
allergies,
alerts,
risk factors,
medical problems/diagnosis,
current medications,
immunisations,
progress notes, and
observations.

Summaries may be in the form of:

a profile of your health (including medical history for up to 20 previous visits) provided by your nominated healthcare provider (as advised in their registration form and updated when changing their usual primary care provider), which may be updated after each future visit.
a summary of each visit to a participating healthcare provider, GP or hospital.
a discharge summary from an admission to a ward or the Emergency Department at a hospital.
pathology test results and radiology reports.

WHICH Healthcare providers ARE INVOLVED?

Participating healthcare providers display My eHealth Record signageso that you are able to readily identify the providers who are participating in the service. Currently the categories of healthcare providers participating include:

Northern Territory:Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services,GP practices, NT Department of Health remote health centres and all public hospitals;

South Australia: Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services;

Western Australia:Western Australia Country Health Services (WACHS) Kimberley Region public hospitals.

As My eHealth Recordexpands its coverage other healthcare providers such as specialist and allied health practices, pharmacies and residential aged care facilitiesmay be included.

A full and updated list is available on the eHealthNT website at

USE AND DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Use and disclosure

By registering for My eHealth Record, you consent to your health information being sent to your record in My eHealth Record and accessed by participating healthcare providers involved in your care.

You have the option to:

say “no” at any time. If there is certain information that you do not want sent to your record in the My eHealth Record, tell your participating healthcare provider that you do not want this information sent to your record; or
ask at any time to stop a summary from being accessible in your record in My eHealth Record. Your healthcare provider or staff at eHealthNT can help arrange this.

Participating healthcare providers will only use information about your health from your record in My eHealth Record:

as you have agreed by the consent you gave when you registered for My eHealth Record, subject to the wishes you express directly a participating healthcare provider at the time of receiving healthcare;
to provide healthcare services to you;
to ensure the information in your record in My eHealth Record is accurate, complete and up-to-date; and
to facilitate access by you to information in your record in My eHealth Record.

Where your record in My eHealth Record is used in providing healthcare to you, information from your record may be copied to the health record kept by your healthcare provider. Where this occurs, the information will only be used or disclosed for the purpose of providing healthcare to you or for a purpose that is permitted under the Privacy Act or the National Privacy Principles.

eHealthNT will only use and disclose information about your health that is held in your record in My eHealth Record to ensure the information in your record in My eHealth Record is accurate, complete and up-to-date. Disclosure will be limited to participating healthcare providers who have sent health summaries to your record.

eHealthNT and participating healthcare providers may use other personal information (such as your name, address, date of birth, next of kin and contact details):

for administrative purposes in maintaining your registration and updating your contact details; and
to communicate with you in relation to your participation in My eHealth Record

Evaluation and Reporting

eHealthNT undertakes evaluation activities using My eHealth Record data to improve the quality of the service provided by My eHealth Record. My eHealth Record data does not include any information about your health and you will not be able to be personally identified in any reports that are published. eHealthNT may provide de-identified information about the use of My eHealth Record to the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing and the National E-Health Transition Authority as part of acquitting its obligations under funding agreements. This may comprise data collected about you and other users to form aggregate results. However, eHealthNT will not provide any personal information that directly identifies you.

Research

Information about your health that is held in your record in My eHealth Recordwill not be used or disclosed for other purposes including research purposes.

Partners

Third party information technology suppliers have been engaged to perform functions on behalf of eHealthNT and may have access to My eHealth Record. Each of these suppliers has signed confidentiality agreements with eHealthNT. Any access to your information will occur in the performance of their contractual obligations to us and not for other usage.

Verification of Consumers

eHealthNT uses various details to verify information given by you or participating healthcare providers. At times, eHealthNT uses:

names and date of birth;
addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses;
your healthcare facilityrecord numbers(if you have previously attended one of the participating healthcare providers as a patient);
your Individual Healthcare Identifier (IHI) allocated by the Healthcare Identifiers Service operated by Medicare. (The IHI is a national healthcare identifier which provides a way for healthcare providers to more accurately match healthcare records. Your IHI may be used by participating healthcare providers to access and send information to your record in My eHealth Record.)

If you are a Northern Territory resident you will be issued a Hospital Reference Number (HRN). You may already have a HRN if you have used a service provided by the Northern Territory Department of Health. The HRN will enable information to be sent or accessed by NT public hospitals and other Departmental health services. The HRN is for administration purposes only, you will not need to provide or know your HRN. More information is available from the My eHealth Record website.

PROTECTION AND SECURITY OF INFORMATION

eHealthNT takes all reasonable steps to protect all information held (including your personal information) from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

Participating healthcareproviders are required to protect your personal information from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. However, eHealthNT will not be responsible to you for any act or omission of a participating healthcare provider.

Information contained in My eHealth Record is protected by encryption and firewall technology.

The communication of the My eHealth Record is secured by Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) encryption technology approved by the National eHealth Transition Authority.

eHealthNT takes reasonable steps to hold information securely in electronic or physical form. eHealthNT stores information in access controlled premises or in electronic databases requiring logins and passwords. All participating healthcare providers with access to confidential information are subject to confidentiality obligations.

The steps eHealthNT has taken to protect your personal information include:

Only authorised healthcare workers and authorisedeHealthNTstaff can see your record inMy eHealth Record;
Participating healthcare providers are required to agree to only collect and deal with information from your record inMy eHealth Record in accordance with this My eHealth Record Privacy Policy, the My eHealth Record Privacy Manual and all relevant laws, and only in relation to providing healthcare services to you or as required by law;
eHealthNTis not involved in the selling, trading or the unauthorised use of personal information; and
eHealthNT receives and stores certain types of information when you interact with our website, this is provided through the use of cookies.

WHAT ARE COOKIES?

Cookies are computer identifiers that are placed on your computer's hard drive through your web browser. Cookies enable eHealthNT’swebsite to recognise your browser and welcome you back to the site.

eHealthNT’s cookies do not send us back any information about your computer or any other information on your hard drive.

ACCESS AND COMPLAINTS

You may request access to the content of your record inMy eHealth Recordat any time.You may also ask eHealthNT for an audit trail which will indentify theindividuals (and the facility in which they work) who have accessed your record inMy eHealth Record.

You can ask for corrections to be made to information in your record inMy eHealth Record. Requests may be made to the participating healthcare provider who provided the health summary or to eHealthNT. Where information is incorrect in a health summary, My eHealth Record will accept an updated health summary from the participating healthcare provider for inclusion in your record. The outdated health summary will retained as a participating healthcare provider may have acted on this information in providing care to you, but it will no longer be viewable when providers access your record.eHealthNT will assist with including your comments where you believe information to be incorrect and agreement cannot be reached with the participating healthcare provider on correction.

Personal information provided by you as part of your registration for My eHealth Record can be updated by you if information provided is incorrect or out of date.

If you have a clinical question, please ask your healthcare provider.

If you have a non-clinical question, or wish to access or correct your record inMy eHealth Record or make a complaint about the My eHealth Record please contact eHealthNT:

Postal:Reply Paid 156, DARWIN NT 0801
Free Call:1800 619 411
Website: