SHARING OF PERSONAL DATA

We sometimes share your personal information:

• with third parties who work with our practice for business purposes, such as accreditation – agencies or information technology providers – these third parties are required to comply with APPs and this policy
• with other healthcare providers
• when it is required or authorised by law (eg court subpoenas)
• when it is necessary to lessen or prevent a serious threat to a patient’s life, health or safety or public health or safety, or it is impractical to obtain the patient’s consent
• to assist in locating a missing person
• to establish, exercise or defend an equitable claim for the purpose of confidential dispute resolution process
• when there is a statutory requirement to share certain personal information (eg some diseases require mandatory notification)
• during the course of providing medical services, through My Health Record (eg via Shared Health Summary, Event Summary).

Only people that need to access your information will be able to do so. Other than in the course of providing medical services or as otherwise described in this policy, our practice will not share personal information with any third party without your consent.

We will not share your personal information with anyone outside Australia (unless under exceptional circumstances that are permitted by law) without your consent.

Westridge Medical will not use your personal information for marketing any of our goods or services.

If a person calls to ask if a family member or friend is or has been at our practice, they must be advised that our practice abides by a strict privacy and confidentiality policy and therefore no such information is disclosed. If the query is pursued, the caller must be advised that a message will be taken and a GP will return their call as soon as convenient.

Cross-border disclosure of personal information:-

Patients – We will not disclose any personal or Health information to any oversea’s entity (APP8). We do not use ‘cloud’ services for any patient related material, and all information is stored securely, electronically in Australia.

Some of the entities that we disclose personal or health information to may use cloud based services or services in overseas countries, however these entities should disclose this to you.

Staff – We do use accounting software that is cloud based(APP8). Employment records and payroll information is located on cloud servers owned by a New Zealand corporation (Xero). They have their own privacy policy which matches the Australian Privacy Principles available from their web site.

Information kept by Westridge Medical is stored securely electronically. All access to information is protected by individual user names and passwords (APP11). The RACGP set standards for electronic records in their computer security guidelines. We meet and exceed those standards.