The Jean Hailes Medical Centre for Women takes its obligations under the Victorian Health Records Act 2001and the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 seriously and would like to take all reasonable steps in order to comply and protect the privacy of the personal information that we hold. This policy sets out how we intend to so.

Collection of information 

The Jean Hailes Medical Centre for Women collects and holds personal health information about you. 

The Jean Hailes Medical Centre for Women collects information from you so that we may properly assess, diagnose, treat and be pro-active in your health care needs. All members of the professional team involved in your care will have access to your personal information. This means we may use and disclose the information you provide in the following ways:

• Disclosure to others involved in your health care, including treating doctors, pathology services, radiology services and other specialists outside this medical practice. This may occur through referral to other doctors, or for medical tests and in the reports or results returned to us following the referrals.
• Disclosure to enable recording on medical registers (example the diabetes register or pap test register).
• Administrative purposes in running our medical practice, including our insurer or medical indemnity provider, and quality assurance and accreditation bodies.
• Billing purposes, including providing information to your health insurance fund, the Health Insurance Commission (Medicare) and other organisation responsible for the financial aspects of your care.
• Assisting with training and education of other health professionals.

In most cases we will obtain the information directly from you or your treating Doctors.

Information Quality 

Our goal is to ensure that your information is accurate, complete and up-to-date. To assist us with this, please contact us if any of the details you have provided change. Further, if you believe that the information we have about you is not accurate, complete or up-to-date, contact us and we will use all reasonable efforts to correct the information.

Storage

We will take all reasonable steps to protect the security of the personal information that we hold. This includes appropriate measures to protect electronic materials and materials stored and generated in hard copy.

Access to your personal information 

Access will be provided in accordance with our Access Policy. If you require access to your personal information please contact the Medical Director.

Contract 

We do not contract out data storage or processing functions.

Legal reasons why we collect the personal information 

Some information we collect is in order to comply with our legal obligations for public interest reasons, eg mandatory reporting of some communicable diseases.

What happens if you choose not to provide the information? 

You are not obliged to give us your personal information. However, if you choose not to provide The Jean Hailes Medical Centre for Women with the personal details required for your health assessment, we may not be able to provide you with the full range of our services necessary for your health management.

Treatment of Children 

The rights of children to the privacy of their health information, based on the professional judgement of the doctor and consistent with law, might restrict access to the child's information by parents or guardians.

Complaints 

If you have any complaints about our privacy practices or wish to make a complaint about how your personal information is managed please contact the Chief Operating Officer. All complaints will be dealt with fairly and as quickly as possible.

A privacy complaint relates to any concern or dispute that you have with our privacy practices as it relates to your personal information. This could include matters such as how personal information is collected, stored used, disclosed or how access is provided. We prefer that your complaint is in writing.

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of our handling of your complaint you may contact the Victorian Health Services Commissioner or the Federal Privacy Commissioner.

Content updated March 14, 2005