Quote Of The Year

Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"

or

H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Legislation Alert - Minister Hunt Is Off And Rolling

According to a tweet from  @political_alert

The Minister for Health is currently presenting the My Health Records Amendment
(Strengthening Privacy) Bill 2018 to the House of Representatives.

Lot of good that will do in the present political climate and disarray!!

David.

ps. The legislation is here:

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;page=0;query=BillId%3Ar6169%20Recstruct%3Abillhome

D.

4 comments:

Bernard Robertson-Dunn said...

A prediction I made in a tweet:

The government (i.e. ADHA) doesn't treat itself as a "third party" and so is exempt from most if not all the legislation.

This issue is the single biggest destroyer of trust re #myhealthrecord

Anonymous said...

Anyone know if Greg Hunt showed up, I hear he handed the PM his resignation

https://www.healthcareit.com.au/article/canberra-chaos-health-minister-offers-resign-rebuffed-and-introduces-my-health-record

A shame a few in ADHA do not do the same but for reasons of incompetence, bullying and blatant conflict of interests

Dr David G More MB PhD said...

He is in Parliament right now talking about the PBS....

David.

Bernard Robertson-Dunn said...

Well, my prediction was correct. Not really a surprise, but it might cause some problems if someone challenges the statement in the explanatory statement:

"(the Bill) will amend the My Health Records Act 2012 to:

* remove the ability of the My Health Record System Operator to disclose health information in My Health Records to law enforcement agencies and government agencies without an order by a judicial officer or the healthcare recipient’s consent;"

ADHA is a government agency - how do they stop themselves disclosing data to themselves?

And more importantly, their subcontractors (mainly Accenture) who run the technology?

Furthermore, the legislation seems to only apply to "health information" about a single healthcare recipient.

I was wondering if the legislation prohibits ADHA from analysing the data in MyHR and passing along the results to other agencies.

So can AHDA answer questions like, "how many times has a specific GP (or medical centre) prescribed xxx drug or yyy treatment?" (they can already get this data from MBS/PBS) but then include in the query such questions as "what are the SHSs and or events associated with these prescriptions/treatments?" As long as identifying information was removed, it would be legal for ADHA to supply the answers.

My suspicion is that the real intent of myhr is to track healthcare providers, not assist patients. The new legislation does not seem to prevent ADHA passing on to the Department of Health, DHS, ATO etc, data about health providers (who may be suspected of being involved in unlawful conduct) as long as it does not contain patient specific data.

Anyone care to comment?