Privacy Policy

What is a Patient Health Record?

A Patient Health Record holds the information about a person that is required for effective care. It may be a physical record or electronic. It contains demographic information like your:

Name
DOB
Address and contact details

As well as details of your clinical care including:

The doctor’s notes / examinations
Results
Specialist letters
Medications prescribed
Immunisations
Obstetric records
Details of current or past medical conditions.

In order to provide comprehensive care, it also contains a patient’s family and social history.

This information is used to form appropriate management plans for your health care delivery depending upon your individual circumstance and is passed on as appropriate to other health care providers e.g., in specialist referrals.

In addition, general practice health records serve a number of purposes in addition to recording health care provided, including providing data for research and policy, contributing to education, and providing healthcare evidence for medicolegal purposes.

Why and When your consent is required?

When you register as a patient of our practice, you provide consent for our GPs and practice staff to access and use your personal information so they can provide you with the best possible healthcare. Only staff who need to see your personal information will have access to it. If we need to use your information for anything else, we will seek additional consent from you to do this.

Why do we collect, hold, use and share your personal information?

Our practice will need to collect your personal information to provide healthcare services to you. Our main purpose for collecting, using, holding, and sharing your personal information is to manage your health. We also use it for directly related business activities, such as financial claims and payments, practice audits and accreditation, and business processes (eg staff training).

What personal information do we collect?

The information we will collect about you includes:

names, date of birth, addresses, contact details
medical information including medical history, medications, allergies, adverse events, immunisations, social history, family history and risk factors
medicare number (where available) for identification and claiming purposes
healthcare identifiers
health fund details.

How do we collect your personal information?

Our practice will collect your personal information:

When you make your first appointment our practice staff will collect your personal and demographic information via your registration.
During the course of providing medical services, we may collect further personal information. Information can also be collected through MyHealth Record, eg via Shared Health Summary and an Event Summary.
We may also collect your personal information when you visit our website, send us an email or SMS, telephone us, make an online appointment or communicate with us using social media.
In some circumstances personal information may also be collected from other sources. Often this is because it is not practical or reasonable to collect it from you directly. This may include information from:
your guardian or responsible person
other involved healthcare providers, such as specialists, allied health professionals, hospitals, community health services and pathology and diagnostic imaging services
your health fund, Medicare, or the Department of Veteran’s Affairs (as necessary).

Who do we share your personal information with?

We sometimes share your personal information:

with third parties who work with our practice for business purposes, such as accreditation agencies or information technology providers – these third parties are required to comply with APPs and this policy
with other healthcare providers
when it is required or authorised by law (eg court subpoenas)
when it is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to a patient’s life, health or safety or public health or safety, or it is impractical to obtain the patient’s consent
to assist in locating a missing person
to establish, exercise or defend an equitable claim
for the purpose of confidential dispute resolution process
when there is a statutory requirement to share certain personal information (eg some diseases require mandatory notification)
during the course of providing medical services. Only people that need to access your information will be able to do so. Other than in the course of providing medical services or as otherwise described in this policy, our practice will not share personal information with any third party without your consent.

We will not share your personal information with anyone outside Australia (unless under exceptional circumstances that are permitted by law) without your consent.

Our practice will not use your personal information for marketing any of our goods or services directly to you without your express consent. If you do consent, you may opt-out of direct marketing at any time by notifying our practice in writing.

How do we store and protect your personal information?

Your personal information may be stored at our practice in various forms. These forms may be as an electronic record, paper records, visual x-rays and video recordings for training purposes.

Our practice stores all personal information securely.

All data both electronic and paper are stored and managed in accordance with the Royal College of General Practitioners (RACGP) Computer and Information Security Standards (CISS) and the requirements of Gladstone Central Medical Centre’s Business Continuity Plan. All employees and third parties have confidentiality agreements in place.

How can you access and correct your personal information at our practice?

You have the right to access and correct your personal information.

Our practice acknowledges patients may request access to their medical records. We require you to put this request in writing to the Practice and we will respond within a reasonable time. Response will be within 14 days for electronic record and 30 days if your medical records are in a manual form. There is a fee applicable which depends upon the size of your records. Our practice will take reasonable steps to correct your personal information where the information is not accurate or up-to-date. From time-to-time, we will ask you to verify your personal information held by our practice is correct and up-to-date. You may also request that we correct or update your information.

Dealing with us anonymously

You have the right to deal with us anonymously or under a pseudonym unless it is impracticable for us to do so or unless we are required or authorised by law to only deal with identified individuals.

How can you lodge a privacy related complaint, and how will the complaint be dealt with at our practice?

We take complaints and concerns regarding privacy seriously. You should express any privacy concerns you may have in writing. We will then attempt to resolve it in accordance with our resolution procedure.

We take the privacy of your information seriously and it is important that you understand how we manage your personal information. If you have any questions or comments in relation to this Privacy Policy, if you wish to access or correct your personal information, or if you wish to make a complaint about a privacy matter, please contact us by email at info@gcmc.net.au, or by mail addressed to:

Manager

Gladstone Central Medical Centre

PO Box 1567

Gladstone QLD 4680

and it will be dealt with within 30 days of lodgement.

You may also contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). Generally the OAIC will require you to give them time to respond, before they will investigate. For further information visit www.oaic.gov.au or call the OAIC on 1300 363 992