This Seems Rather Fascist In Tone From A Children’s Hospital.

I really think this is very unreasonable – while recognizing some ‘true believers’ will disagree!

I noticed this last week:

My Health Record

What is My Health Record?

My Health Record is an online summary of your key health information. When you have a My Health Record, your health information can be viewed securely online, from anywhere at any time and it includes information such as:

• Allergies
• Medical conditions
• Treatments
• Medicines
• Test and scan results (such as blood tests and x-rays).

Perth Children’s Hospital contributes to Australia’s My Health Record system and is currently uploading information from five clinical applications: 

• Patient Administration System (webPAS)
• Notifications and Clinical Summaries (NaCS)
• iSoft Clinical Manager (iCM)
• eReferral
• Allergy and Dietary Advice (ADA). 

These applications upload:

• discharge summaries
• shared health summaries
• specialist letters
• event summaries 
• prescription and dispensary records  
• pathology results
• diagnostic imaging reports
• referral information for consumers.  

For a list of benefits of having a My Health Record, please refer to the My Health Record website. 

If you have a My Health Record these documents will be automatically uploaded, if you do not want this to occur you need to inform us at every attendance. Please ask us for a Change of Consent to Upload Documents to My Health Record form.

For parents

Parents or guardians (who are linked to their child via the Medicare system) are automatically added as an authorised representative to view or delete their child’s record. When the child turns 14, this access will be automatically removed. Read more here. 

For under 14 years

If you are the parent or guardian of a child or dependent under 14, you can opt your child out of a My Health Record if you don’t want them to have one. More information is available here.

For 14-17 year olds

If you are 14 years or over, it is your choice whether you have a My Health Record or not. You can also give a parent or guardian or other trusted person access to your record, adding them as a nominated representative. If you choose to delete your record, you can do so online or via the My Health Record help line on 1800 723 471. You will need to be able to verify your identity with your Medicare card as well as a current drivers licence/learners drivers licence, Immicard or Passport.
More information can be found here.

Contact us

For more information on My Health Record, please visit myhealthrecord.gov.au.

If you have any questions or concerns about how your child’s My Health Record is being managed by Perth Children’s Hospital, please contact the Child and Family Engagement Service.  

Here is the link:

https://www.fsh.health.wa.gov.au/Hospitals/PCH/Home/For-patients-and-visitors/Your-childs-medical-record/My-Health-Record

This is the bit I really object to:

“If you have a My Health Record these documents will be automatically uploaded, if you do not want this to occur you need to inform us at every attendance. Please ask us for a Change of Consent to Upload Documents to My Health Record form.”

So every time you bring your child into the hospital, if you want to keep their data out of a centralised Government system, you have to remember to ask for and fill out a special form – which you can bet will be hard to find and submit. Who too is not specified.

Surely a tech advanced hospital with all the systems described can just allow the parent to make a choice once and then action the choice from then on.

In passing those who read here will know how often such instructions are ignored by pathology providers.

It just gets harder and harder to avoid the tentacles of this ‘information grasping and aggregating’ Federal Government!

Rant off!

David.