Electronic Health Records developments

Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald article “Reversal of privacy promise” provided an update on the NSW Health pilot schemes for the introduction of electronic health records. The article says that the Government has backed away from promises to keep the scheme voluntary and that the scheme will keep a record for every person who uses the health system. The report said that the Government will need to put in place a regulation to allow the scheme to proceed in this form as otherwise it involves a breach of HPP 15 in the Health Records and Information Privacy Act.

The Department of Health website includes a Healthelink update and a media release dated 21 February which provides more details about the Hunter pilot ("Hunter patients in health technology revolution").

Participation in the scheme is voluntary but these documents indicate that for those who choose not to participate a record of their non participation will be maintained. The privacy implications of this don’t seem too serious but its almost inevitable that the express consent provision in HPP 15 regarding the inclusion of information in a linked system will be altered at some point to an opt out option.