This Appeared With Great Fanfare Last Week! Is It Important? You Bet If You Care About Your Health Information Privacy.

This release appeared last week:

Media release - New My Health Record guidelines launched for pharmacists

11 April, 2018

Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) launched new guidelines today for pharmacists to promote meaningful clinical use of the My Health Record system to enhance patient-centred care.

The new guidelines will help increase the number of pharmacists using My Health Record, a digital system that enables healthcare providers to share secure health data and improve the safety and quality of patient care.

My Health Record enables important health information including allergies, medical conditions, treatments, medicines, and scan reports to be accessed through one system. The benefits include reduced hospital admissions, reduced duplication of tests, better coordination of care for people with chronic and complex conditions, and better informed treatment decisions.

PSA National President Dr Shane Jackson said that the guidelines will further enable the digital capability of pharmacists is a game changer for pharmacists’ contribution to enhancing medication safety and ensuring quality use of medicines.

“Having access to information will allow pharmacists to deliver more effective and efficient care,” said Dr Jackson, who is the Chair of the Project Advisory Group.

“Pharmacists have a professional responsibility to review their practice and where necessary, build on their digital health competency, to integrate use of the My Health Record system into patient care.

“PSA is delighted to offer these professional guidelines for pharmacy practice as well as implementation tools for digital health.”

Queensland pharmacist, and Chair of the Project Working Group, Chris Campbell said the ease of access to information by using My Health Record was going to make the biggest difference for pharmacists to providing care.

“The My Health Record integration helps to make key clinical decisions possible at the point of professional interaction such as dispensing and medication review.

“Until now, pharmacists have been dispensing, counselling, providing advice, and conducting medication reconciliation partially blindfolded,” Mr Campbell said.

“My Health Record helps to lift the veil and our contributions will further cement pharmacists as an integral member of the primary health care team.”

Australian Digital Health Agency CEO Tim Kelsey said the guidelines were an essential support for pharmacists in the transition to embedding My Health Record as a normal part of daily pharmacy practice.

“PSA, and in particular Dr Shane Jackson’s strong leadership for My Health Record is much appreciated by the Agency as it gears up for the expansion of My Health Record to every Australian unless they choose not to have one, later this year,” Mr Kelsey said.

“The ability for pharmacists to contribute patient health information to My Health Record is an integral part of the My Health Record system. In My Health Record, pharmacists have a platform to enhance the provision of patient-centred care though access to key patient health information and by contributing valuable information related to care they have provided.”

All Australians will be provided with a My Health Record by the end of 2018, unless they choose not to have one.

ENDS

The release is found here:

Heather Saxena of Pharmacy News thoughtfully summarised the key points:

“Here are eight key points from the guidelines:

• Ideally, pharmacies should display a sign advising patients whether or not the pharmacy uses MyHealth Record (MHR).
• By signing up for a MHR, patients are giving consent for their clinical information to be uploaded to the record. But it’s a good idea to let patients know. For example, display a sign that states all prescriptions are uploaded to a patient’s MHR.
• It’s okay to access the MHR without a patient’s permission in an emergency situation, such as a patient falling unconscious or having a seizure in the pharmacy.
• Children aged over 14 can control and manage their own MHR.
• It’s up to pharmacies to provide adequate security to prevent misuse of a MHR. Examples include automatic activation of a screensaver after a page has been inactive for a minute, and regularly changing passwords.
• All pharmacy staff must be trained before they use MHR for the first time. This includes being able to document clinical incidents and near-misses in the system.
• Pharmacists need to contact the Australian Digital Health Agency to obtain a USB key or smartcard so they can access the provider portal.
• Patients can request certain information not be uploaded to their MHR. Uploading of sensitive information, such a diagnosis of HIV, may require written patient consent.”

What struck me about this summary was how ‘laid back” or non-prescriptive it was. Surely having signage making it clear the myHR is used and your information will be uploaded is hardly optional?

Surely the use if words like ‘ideally’ were just really incorrect. Sadly not. If you read the full guidelines there is a great deal of optionality in all sorts of areas like informing patients of data upload, how security is achieved, who a pharmacist can authorise to access the myHR and so on.

BTW, the guidelines reveal once opt-out comes every dispense record will be uploaded where a myHR exists.

Here is the direct link:

http://www.psa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/My-Health-Record-Guidelines-for-Pharmacists.pdf

To me this is another reason to stay a long way away from the myHR and to opt-out. The PSA is just way to “Californian” for my likes about protecting my health information!

David.