Health Privacy Issues
Additional treatment information relating to veterans to be included in My Health Record.
On 1 July 2019, a regulatory amendment issued under the My Health Records Act 2012 prescribed that information relating to the provision of healthcare to veterans may in certain circumstances be included in a My Health Record: My Health Records Amendment (Veterans' Affairs Treatment Benefits) Regulations 2019. The Treatment Benefits (Special Access) Act 2019 provides for medical treatment, through a Department of Veterans' Affairs treatment card (gold card), of members of Australian Civilian Surgical and Medical Teams who provided medical aid, training and treatment to local Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War, and the effect of the amendment is that the My Health Records Regulation 2012 now provides for the inclusion in a My Health Record of healthcare provided under the Treatment Benefits (Special Access) Act. The Statement of Compatibility with Human Rights which accompanied the amendment observed that "including healthcare information created under the Treatment Benefits (Special Access) Act 2019 will enable eligible Australians to better manage their healthcare information and assist healthcare providers".
Here is the link:
Does anyone know what this means and does it matter?
Thanks
David.
5 comments:
Doctors & AHP are now allowed to upload information when treating a DVA patient (those with DVA entitlement & DVA pay for the services). A defence force GP can upload medical records of a soldier to the M Health Record. Does it matter? This just allows more of the same.
I wonder if it also allows the DVA to download your health records as well?
I've no idea what that regulation means but here is an interesting analysis from the June issue of the UNSW Law Journal
http://www.unswlawjournal.unsw.edu.au/article/the-my-health-record-system-potential-to-undermine-the-paradigm-of-patient-confidentiality/
The My Health Record System: Potential To Undermine The Paradigm Of Patient Confidentiality?
Gabrielle Wolf and Danuta Mendelson
Australia’s national electronic health records system – known as the ‘My Health Record (‘MHR’) system’ – may threaten to undermine the traditional paradigm of patient confidentiality within the therapeutic relationship. Historically, patients have felt comfortable imparting sensitive information to their health practitioners on the understanding that such disclosures are necessary and will be relied on principally for the purpose of treating them.
The MHR system potentially facilitates access to patients’ health information by individuals and entities beyond the practitioners who are directly providing them with healthcare and, in some circumstances, without the patients’ consent. It may also enable patients’ health practitioners and their employees to read records that those practitioners did not create or receive in the course of treating the patients and that are irrelevant to their treatment of them.
The MHR system could have harmful consequences for individual and public health if patients become unwilling to disclose information to their healthcare providers because they fear it will not remain confidential. In addition to examining the risks of breaches of patient confidentiality in the MHR system, this article considers how the potential benefits of an electronic health records system might be achieved while maintaining patient confidentiality to a significant extent.
Then there's this article
Evaluating the Contextual Integrity of Australia’s My Health Record
http://ebooks.iospress.nl/publication/51930
Timothy Kariotis, Megan Prictor, Shanton Chang, Kathleen Gray
Discussion and Conclusion
Initial assessment of MyHR SHS points to a breach in contextual integrity due to a shift from a ‘push’ to ‘pull’ method of information sharing.
This disrupts the event-specific nature of current information sharing. Evaluating the contextual integrity of shared information in an electronic health record is complicated by the changing nature of health care.
Team-based care requires greater sharing of information, which challenges traditional values related to confidentiality and privacy. In addition, clinicians’ need for information to support individualised decision making is growing, and providing that information in an efficient and effective way is essential.
If MyHR proves to have benefits to patients and clinicians, a breach of contextual integrity may be warranted. However, the evidence for summary records is still limited. There appears to be a risk that the promise of better care will be sunk by too much data with too little relevance at the point of care.
New values related to patient empowerment pose opportunities for a shareable electronic health record that may justify breaches of contextual integrity. However, this rests on the assumption that patients have the resources to take control of their MyHR.
Further evidence of MyHR SHS benefits, and of patients and clinicians actual use, is needed before we can conclusively determine whether MyHR breaches contextual integrity.
Presumably contextual integrity is another way of referring to inaccurate, unreliable, error-prone information!
If so, it is difficult to comprehend in the clinical environment how a "a breach of contextual integrity may be warranted" let alone "have benefits to patients and clinicians".
It is also difficult to comprehend how "too much data with too little relevance at the point of care" that breaches "contextual integrity" can be of benefit to patients and clinicians!
I stand to be corrected if I have misunderstood the meaning of "contextual integrity".
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There appears to be a risk that the promise of better care will be sunk by too much data with too little relevance at the point of care.
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