Introduction

We are committed to protecting the privacy of patient information and to handling your personal information in a responsible manner in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and its amendments, including the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), and the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW)(referred to as privacy legislation).

 

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store and disclose your personal information, how you may access that information and how you may seek the correction of any information. It also explains how you may make a complaint about a breach of privacy legislation.

 

This policy is current from 6th November 2024. From time to time, we may make changes to our policy, processes and systems in relation to how we handle your personal information, without notice. We will update this Privacy Policy to reflect any changes. Those changes will be available for you in the practice.

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Melanoma Dermatology: what we do and how we use your personal information

We are a private medical practice that specialises in diagnosis and management of melanoma and related skin conditions. The practice has consulting rooms in Suite 8, Level 3 of the Melanoma Institute Australia, Wollstonecraft, Sydney.

 

The practice is affiliated with the Melanoma Institute Australia, Sydney Melanoma Diagnostic Centre and the University of Sydney. Our specialists hold accreditation at various public and private hospitals in New South Wales.

 

The practice actively participates in melanoma research and clinical trials by providing information and data.

 

Melanoma Dermatology is a medical services business. We provide management, facilities, administrative and nursing services to independent medical practitioners who run their own independent business from our practice. These practitioners have agreed to fall under and abide by our Privacy Policy and framework.

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Collection of your information

The type of information we may collect, and hold includes:

• Your name, address, date of birth, email, contact details, gender, family history, and next of kin

• Your racial or ethnic origin may be collected, where this pertains to a relevant patient care question.

• Health information includes

• Medicare number, DVA number and other government identifiers, although we will not use these for the purposes of identifying you in our practice

• Health information about you, including:

  • notes of your symptoms or diagnosis and the treatment given to you

  • your medical history, past and current treatments, lifestyle factors and any other information which is necessary to assist us in providing you with appropriate care.

 

• the names of other health care providers involved in your care, and copies of relevant referrals, reports, results and samples.

• your appointment and billing details

• your prescriptions and other pharmaceutical purchases

• Medical photography: With your consent, we utilise photographs to assist in your health care. These include total body photographs, clinical photographs and dermoscopic photographs. These photographs form part of your legal medical record. You can also choose to access your images on an app on your phone.

 

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How do we collect and hold personal information?

Wherever practicable we will collect information from you personally, or from a personal responsible for you. This might be telephone, fax, email, in writing, in person in our rooms in suite 8, or over the Internet if you transact with us online. We may request information from other medical services by email. This information may be collected by medical and administrative staff.

However, we may also need to collect information from other sources such as general practitioners, treating specialists, radiologists, pathologists, hospitals, other health care providers, next of kin and MyHealth Record to assist in your medical care. We often require health information from other specialist medical practices within the Melanoma Institute Australia and affiliated health services.

 

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Why do we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information?

 

Melanoma Dermatology uses your personal and health information:

• to provide healthcare services to you.

• to communicate with you about the healthcare services provided to you.

• to communicate with other healthcare professionals involved in your healthcare.

  • For example, the disclosure of histopathology results to your referring doctor or your medical history in requests for diagnostic testing. 

  • We disclose your personal information to healthcare professionals directly involved in your treatment, for example specialist medical practices within the Melanoma Institute Australia.

  • We may discuss your case for quality assurance purposes at the Melanoma Institute Australia weekly multidisciplinary team meeting.

• We may review you case for quality assurance purposes within our department.

• We may transmit information by mail, fax, electronic delivery, email or upload to your My Health Record if you have one.

 

Where your medical records are required in the case of a medical emergency, we will provide these to the relevant medical professional without waiting for your consent, where we believe this is in your interests.

• to appropriately manage our practice, undertake accreditation processes, manage billings and train staff.

• to liaise with your health fund, government and regulatory bodies such as Medicare, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, as necessary.  

• For research, audit, quality assurance, teaching and education, in order to improve current methods of diagnosis and treatment. Only de-identified information is utilised for these purposes. 

 

De-identified disclosure requires removal of personal identifiers (name, address, date of birth, or other identifying information) and other information which may allow you to be identified.

 

We may disclose information about you to third parties who work with our practice for business purposes, such as an IT service provider, medical transcription service, medical photography software provider, accountant, solicitor or debt collection agent. These third parties are required to comply with the APPs and this policy. We impose restrictions and security requirements on how they handle your personal information.

 

We will not use your information for another purpose unless you have given consent (for example, the Melanoma Research Database) or if one of the exceptions under the Privacy Act applies. For example, if the use of the information is authorized by Australian law or is necessary for law enforcement by an enforcement body. Your personal information may also be provided to third parties if we are legally obliged to do so by a court subpoena, statutory authority, search warrant, coronial summons or to defend a legal action.

 

The Melanoma Institute Australia may access some personal and health information from the Practice Management software via Middleware for audit purposes and financial reports.

 

The lease requires Melanoma Dermatology to permit representatives of the head-lessor, St Vincent’s and Mater Health Sydney Limited, to inspect patient records to confirm compliance with the Ethics Standards for Catholic Health and Aged Care Services in Australia.

 

Further consent will be obtained if your information is used for any purpose other than set out in this document

 

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Data Quality and Security of your information

 

We will take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete, up to date and relevant. For this purpose, our staff may ask you to confirm that your contact details are correct when you attend a consultation. We request that you let us know if any of the information we hold about you is incorrect or out of date.

 

We hold personal information in paper-based and electronic records and systems.  Personal information may be collected in paper-based documents and converted to electronic form for storage (with the original paper-based documents either archived or securely destroyed).

 

We take reasonable steps to protect your personal and sensitive information held by us from misuse, interference, unauthorized access, modification, loss or disclosure. This includes during collection, processing, transfer, storage and destruction of the information, whether your records be in hard copy or electronic form.

 

Personal information that we hold is protected by:

• Securing our premises

• Placing user identifiers, passwords and varying access levels on databases to limit access Confidentiality agreements for staff and contractors

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The Information and technology services, including medical record and practice management software, are provided to the practice and maintained by the Melanoma Institute Australia. These also include virus controls, firewalls, encryption, data hosting and back up. These services are provided by independent specialist IT contractors.

 

In the event of a data breach, we will use our Data Breach Response Plan and comply with the data breach notifications scheme under the Privacy Act.

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Destruction of records

 

We are required by law to retain medical records for certain periods of time, depending on your age at the time we provided medical services and if you were participating in a clinical trial.

 

When we are no longer required to retain your personal information, we will take reasonable steps to securely destroy the information.

 

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Dealing with unsolicited information

 

If we receive personal information that our practice did not solicit, we will determine whether it could have been collected in the usual way and if not then it will be destroyed in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles.

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Anonymity and pseudonymity

 

Wherever it is lawful and practicable you have the option to request that we deal with you under a pseudonym or anonymously. However, in some cases this would make it impracticable for us to provide you healthcare. Also billing via Medicare or a health insurer would not be possible.  

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Corrections

 

If you believe that the information we have about you is not accurate, complete or up to date, we ask that you contact us in writing (see contact details below).

 

Access to Your Medical Record

 

We encourage you to contact us if you have a query regarding your personal information. You are entitled to request access to your medical records. We request that you put your request in writing, and we will usually respond to it within 30 days.

 

There may be a fee for the administrative costs of retrieving and providing you with copies of your medical records.

 

We may deny access to your medical records in certain circumstances permitted by law, for example, if disclosure may cause a serious threat to your health or safety, or if it would interfere with the privacy of others. We will always give you a written explanation of why access is denied and the options you have to respond to our decision.

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Sending Data Overseas

 

Melanoma Dermatology does not engage with any overseas entities or persons where your personal information will be transferred, stored or disclosed. Should we wish to transfer your personal information overseas, we will ask for your consent before we do so. 

 

We may send information abroad, for example to international experts, when deemed necessary in your treatment and as discussed with you.

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The Spam Act 2003

 

The Spam Act 2003 prohibits sending unsolicited emails, SMS and MMS messages for commercial purposes.

 

Dermatology will send appointment reminders via SMS. If you do not wish to receive communication via SMS, you may opt out by advising the practice.

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Participation in research and clinical trials

 

As an affiliate of the Melanoma Institute and the University of Sydney, Melanoma Dermatology actively participates in medical research and clinical trials. Clinical trial activity undergoes approval by an Ethics Committee.

 

We will always request your permission to be involved in such research before we release any personal information to third party researchers. Your clinician will explain the purpose of the research or trial and ask that you sign a consent form before you can participate.

 

We may use your de-identified health information for research and audit purposes, in order to improve diagnosis and treatment of melanoma and related conditions.

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Melanoma Research Database

 

The Melanoma Research Database (MRD) is administered by MIA and the use of data is explained in The Privacy Policy of MIA which can found on the MIA website www.melanoma.org.au. Melanoma Dermatology provides patient information to the MRD, but this is only provided with your consent.

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Definitions

 

In this Privacy Policy, we use the terms:

"Personal information" as defined in the Privacy Act. This means:
"information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable:

•  whether the information or opinion is true or not; and

•  whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not”.
   

“Health information" as defined in the Privacy Act. This is a subset of "personal information" and means information or an opinion about:

• the health or a disability (at any time) of an individual; or

• an individual's expressed wishes about the future provision of health services to him or her; or

• a health service provided or to be provided to an individual.
   

“Health information” is classified as “sensitive information” under the Privacy Act and is subject to additional mechanisms for your protection.

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Complaints and enquiries

 

Melanoma Dermatology is committed to the protection of your privacy. If you have any questions about how we handle personal information, would like to complain about how we have handled your information or would like further information about our Privacy Policy, please submit a written query or complaint to our Privacy Officer.

 

 

Privacy Officer / Practice manager

Ph: 02 9911 7277

Email: dermatology.manager@melanoma.org.au

Post: 

The Practice Manager

Suite 8, Level 3

Poche Centre

40 Rocklands Rd

Wollstonecraft NSW 2065

 

Our Privacy Officer will address your complaint and liaise with you to resolve the issue within a reasonable time (usually two weeks). If you are unhappy with the outcome, you may lodge a complaint with the Australian Information Commissioner to review. Go to: www.oaic.gov.au/individuals/how-do-i-make-a-privacy-complaint for further information.