JINDABYNE MEDICAL PRACTICE – PRIVACY POLICY AND COLLECTION STATEMENT

Jindabyne Medical Practice collects personal information to enable our Doctors and Staff to coordinate and manage your primary health care.

This policy provides information to patients as to how their personal information (which includes their health information) is collected and used within the Practice, and the circumstances in which we may disclose it to third parties.

This Practice is bound by the Federal Privacy Act (1988) and National Privacy Principles and also complies with the Health Records and Information Privacy Act NSW (2002).

WHAT INFORMATION IS COLLECTED?

We collect personal information regarding your demographic, social and physical details. This information is usually your full name, address, cultural background, and date of birth and next of kin or emergency contact.

We also collect information related to your health care needs. This information may include reports from specialist health care provides, pathology, imaging and investigation reports and all other correspondence that is addressed to your doctor and arrives via mail, fax or electronic means.

We will also collect your past and current medications, past and current medical history and relevant family medical history.

The Practice keeps all your information in your medical file, which is created over the time you are a patient in our Practice.

SECURITY OF YOUR INFORMATION

Your information is kept on a secure database in a dedicated clinical patient administration system. This database is only accessible to authorized staff and is password protected with different levels of access. All staff members of our Practice that have access to your information (this includes medical and nursing students, as well as administrative staff) have signed a confidentiality agreement.

All information that the Practice receives is transferred into an electronic document and stored in your personal file.

DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION

The Practice will NOT disclose your information to any third party other than in the course of providing medical services, without full disclosure to the patient or the recipient, the reason for the information transfer and full consent from the patient. The Practice will NOT disclose your information to anyone outside Australia without need and without your consent.

Exceptions to disclose without patient consents are where information is:

Required by law, as in some infectious diseases, where Public Health Services need to be notified;

When disclosure is deemed necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to a patient’s life, health or safety; or public health or safety.

RETAINING YOUR INFORMATION

By law the Practice is required to retain your medical records for seven years from your last visit to the Practice. If the person is under 18 years of age, the records must be kept until the person has attained 25 years of age. After this time your information will be destroyed.

COMPLAINTS ABOUT PRIVACY MATTERS

Patients are welcome to forward complaints orally or written to the Practice Manager or directly to the Practice Principal. The Practice will investigate and document your complaint and may adjust the policies to improve our services.

The Privacy Officer

Dr Clara Lambooij

Jindabyne 14 April 2015