As an Australian-based organisation, any data and information collected is held, used and disclosed in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988.
‘Personal health information’ is a particular subset of personal information and can include any information collected about a person to provide a health service.
The information we collect about a patient can include medical details, family information, name, address, employment and other demographic data, past medical and social history, current health issues and future medical care, Medicare number, accounts details, and any health information such as a medical or opinion about a person’s health, disability or health status.
Personal health information also includes the formal health record (written or electronic) and information held or recorded on any other medium (e.g. letter, facsimile, electronic, verbal).
The maintenance of privacy requires that any information regarding individual patients (including practice team members who may be patients) may not be disclosed either verbally, in writing or by copying it either at the practice or outside it, during or outside normal opening hours, except for strictly authorised use within the patient care context at the practice or as legally directed.
There are no degrees of privacy. All patient information must be considered private and confidential, even that which is seen or heard and therefore must not to be disclosed to family, friends, members of the practice team not involved in that patient’s care, or any other people without the patient’s approval.
Details about a person’s medical history or other contextual information such as details of an appointment can sometimes still identify them, even if no name is attached to that information. This is still considered personal information and as such it must be protected in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988.