Showing posts with label Health Services. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health Services. Show all posts
Monday 25 February 2019
Yet another Australian health data base compromised
The
Age, 20
February 2019:
A cyber crime syndicate
has hacked and scrambled the medical files of about 15,000 patients from a
specialist cardiology unit at Cabrini Hospital and demanded a ransom.
The attack is now the
subject of a joint investigation by Commonwealth security agencies.
Melbourne Heart Group,
which is based at the private hospital in Malvern, has been unable to access
some patient files for more than three weeks, after the malware attack crippled
its server and corrupted data.
The malware used to
penetrate the unit's security network is believed to be from North Korea or
Russia, while the origin of the criminals behind the attack has not been
revealed.
The online gang
responsible for the data breach demanded a ransom be paid in cryptocurrency
before a password would be provided to break the encryption.
The Age understands
that a payment was made, but some of the scrambled files have not been
recovered, among them patients' personal details and sensitive medical records
that could be used for identity theft.
Some patients were told
that their files had been lost but were not given any explanation. Others have
turned up for appointments for which the hospital had no record.
The Australian Cyber
Security Centre, which is part of the Australian Signals Directorate – the
government agency responsible for Australia's cyber warfare and information
security – said it was assisting the hospital with cyber security advice.
The Australian Federal
Police has also been briefed.
A Melbourne Heart Group
spokeswoman said it was working with government agencies to resolve the issue.
Labels:
cyberspace wars,
data breach,
Health Services
Monday 21 January 2019
Australian Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety now underway
Commencing in
2016-17 when Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison was then just the Federal
Treasurer he cut $472.4 million from Aged Care funding over four years, then
followed that up with a $1.2 billion cut over the same time span.
When deteriorating
conditions in nursing homes around the country began to be reported in the
media and the Oakden scandal came to light in 2017, concerned citizens began to call for a royal commission.
The Liberal
Minister for Aged Care and Liberal MP for Hasluck Ken Wyatt was of the opinion that such an inquiry would be “a waste of time and money”.
Once Scott
Morrison realised that ABC Four Corners was about to air an exposé on aged care provision he quickly changed his mind and announced the Royal Commission into Aged Care
Quality and Safety on 16 September 2018.
The Royal Commission
into Aged Care Quality and Safety was established on 8 October 2018
by the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, His Excellency
General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK MC (Retd).
The Honourable
Richard Tracey AM RFD QC and Ms Lynelle
Briggs AO have been appointed as Royal Commissioners…
The Commissioners are
required to provide an interim report by 31 October 2019, and a final
report by 30 April 2020…
The Commissioners were appointed to be a Commission of inquiry, and
required and authorised to inquire into the following matters:
a. the quality of aged care services
provided to Australians, the extent to which those services meet the needs of
the people accessing them, the extent of substandard care being provided,
including mistreatment and all forms of abuse, the causes of any systemic
failures, and any actions that should be taken in response;
b. how best to deliver aged care services
to:
i.
people with disabilities residing in aged care facilities, including
younger people; and
ii.
the increasing number of Australians living with dementia, having regard
to the importance of dementia care for the future of aged care services;
c. the future challenges and opportunities
for delivering accessible, affordable and high quality aged care services in
Australia, including:
i.
in the context of changing demographics and preferences, in particular
people's desire to remain living at home as they age; and
ii.
in remote, rural and regional Australia;
d. what the Australian Government, aged
care industry, Australian families and the wider community can do to strengthen
the system of aged care services to ensure that the services provided are of
high quality and safe;
e. how to ensure that aged care services
are person‑centred, including through allowing people to exercise greater
choice, control and independence in relation to their care, and improving
engagement with families and carers on care‑related matters;
f. how best to deliver aged care services
in a sustainable way, including through innovative models of care, increased
use of technology, and investment in the aged care workforce and capital
infrastructure;
g. any matter reasonably incidental to a
matter referred to in paragraphs (a) to (f) or that [the Commissioners] believe
is reasonably relevant to the inquiry.
A preliminary
hearing was held in Adelaide on 18 January 2019.
At this
hearing the Commissioner Tracy stated
in part:
The
terms direct our attention to the interface between health, aged care and
disability services in urban, regional and rural areas. These issues
necessarily arise because of Australia’s changing demography. We are also
required to look at young people with disabilities residing in aged care
facilities and do our best to deliver aged care services to the increasing
number of Australians living with dementia. Part of our task is to examine
substandard care and the causes of any systemic failures that have, in the
past, affected the quality or safety of aged care services. We will consider
any actions which should be taken in response to such shortcomings in order to
avoid any repetition. This will necessarily involve us in looking at past 25
events. There have been a number of inquiries which have considered matters
that, in certain respects, fall within our terms of reference. We are not
required by the Letters Patent to inquire into matters which we are satisfied
that have been, is being or will be 30 sufficiently and appropriately dealt
with by another inquiry or investigation or a criminal or civil proceeding. As
a general rule, we do not intend to re-examine matters which have been
specifically examined in previous inquiries. We do, however, expect to examine
the changes and developments which have followed previous inquiries, as well as
the extent to which there has been implementation of recommendations from those
inquiries. Where we have different views, they will be made known.
According to ABC
News on 18 January 2018: Out of almost 2,000 Australian aged care
providers invited to shed light on the sector ahead of the royal commission,
only 83 have been forthcoming with information, the Adelaide inquiry was told.
The
Guardian on
18 January reported: Counsel assisting Peter Gray said the
commission had received more than 300 public submissions since Christmas Eve
and 81% concerned provision of care in residential facilities, with staff
ratios and substandard care the most common themes. The
federal health department has also passed on 5,000 submissions it received
before the commission’s terms of reference were set.
Commission will continue to accept submissions until at least the end of June
2019.
Details on how to make a submission can be found here.
Labels:
aged care,
elder abuse,
Health Services,
human rights,
neglect,
royal commission,
violence
Wednesday 9 January 2019
The bad news for NSW North Coast regional communities just never ends
According to
the Berejiklian Coalition Government’s Transport
for NSW website: The
Community Transport Program (CTP) assists individuals who are transport
disadvantaged owing to physical, social, cultural and / or geographic
factors. Individuals who do not qualify for other support programs may be
eligible for community transport. CTP is funded by the NSW
Government and aims to address transport disadvantage at the local level via
community transport organisations.
In the
Clarence Valley medical specialist services are rather thin on the ground and
residents are frequently referred to medical practices and hospital clinics
hundreds of miles away.
For
communities in the Lower Clarence where a high percentage of the population are
elderly people on low incomes this can frequently present a transport problem,
as often there is no family member living close by to assist or the person’s peer
friendship group doesn’t include anyone capable of driving long distances.
Community
transport has been the only option for a good many people.
Until now…..
The Daily Examiner, 8 January 2019, p.3:
The thought of paying
$200 for a trip to see her specialist about her medical condition made Yamba
pensioner Gloria George glad she was sitting down when she made the call.
The 80-year-old said
when she contacted Clarence Community Transport and was told the price to be
taken by car to the Gold Coast for a Wednesday appointment, it could have
brought on a heart attack.
Mrs George said CCT told
her there was a bus service to the Gold Coast that ran on Monday, Wednesday and
Friday for $70.
“My appointment was on
Tuesday and the clinic I was booked into was not available on the other days,”
she said.
“They said they had made
cutbacks and the price to be driven to the appointment was $200.
“I’ve got a bad heart
problem and I nearly fell over when they told me.
“Who can afford $200 to
go to an appointment?”
Mrs George said she
still has a licence, but would not feel safe driving to her appointment.
“I think I’ll be able to
get a friend to drive me there and take me home again. I hope so,” she said.
The manager of CCT,
Warwick Foster, said the price rise for services had come in when the government
cut $250,000 from CCT’s funding when the NDIS came in last year.
“We could no longer
afford to operate the bus five days a week,” he said. “And we can’t afford to
drive people to appointments for the same fee we charge for the bus service.”
Mr Foster said the
government subsidy for transport of $31 a trip created a juggling act for CCT
to afford its services.
“Each trip, no matter
the distance, is subsidised at $31,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter if
the trip is across town or to Brisbane, the subsidy is the same....
Monday 20 August 2018
Medicare Australia State of Play 2016-2018
The Australian
Minister for Health and Liberal MP for Flinders Greg Hunt tweeted this on 16 August 2018:
Here are the facts on Medicare:— Greg Hunt (@GregHuntMP) August 16, 2018
✅Today’s Medicare data shows a record bulk-billing rate of 86.1%
✅This is 4% higher than anything Labor could achieve
✅Almost 9 out of 10 trips to the GP are free
✅Funding for Medicare this year alone is $5.5 billion higher than Labor put in
So what is
all this self-congratulatory chest-beating about?
According to
the Department of Human Services in
2016–17 a total of 24.9 million people were enrolled in Medicare.
In 2017-18 Medicare
recorded a total 419,852,601 Schedule Items on which Medicare benefits were
paid.
This figure
represents on average 1,672,091 items per 100,000 people.
According to
Heath Minister Hunt the Medicare
bulk billing rate in 2017-18 stood at 86.1 per cent of the total number
of Medicare benefits claimed, leaving 13.9 per cent of Medicare benefits to be
claimed by the patient.
Based on 2016-17
figures this would indicate in excess of 13.3 million of these Medicare
benefits were claimed online by the patient.
Medicare also
recorded 3,318,396 payments of Schedule
Item 3 General Practitioner Attendances To Which No Other Item Applies,
which is a medical service for which there is a 100% Medicare benefit.
That’s an
average 13,216 items per 100,000 males and females between 0-4 years and 85
years or over.
However, none
of these statistics reveal the number of GP or specialist doctor medical
practices which charge patients an upfront amount above the scheduled Medicare benefit
amount.
According to
the Royal
Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) the real percentage of patients who had all their GP visits
bulk billed during 2016–17 was an est. 66 per cent.
Which meant that an estimated 34 per cent of GP patients in that
financial year paid an upfront cost that might not have been able to be fully
claim from Medicare.
The Australian Medical Association (NSW) in
a 2018 statement suggests
that these patients are likely to be paying an average of $48.69 in
out-of-pocket fees.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
states in its Health
Services Series Number 80 that
in 2016-17 there were 7.8 million attendances at public hospital emergency
departments and “at the conclusion of
clinical care in the emergency department, 61% of presentations reported an
episode end status of Departed without being admitted or referred”, which indicates that this percentage may
contain an unspecified number of individuals who attended a public hospital
emergency department because a bulk billing GP was not practicing in their
local area and they were not able to readily afford an upfront fee or
additional out-of-pocket expenses.
ABC News reported* on 17 August 2018 that:
> 1.3 million people delay seeing a doctor because of the cost;
> 1 in 2 Australian patients faced out-of-pocket costs for non-hospital Medicare services, with the median cost sitting at $142 per person;
> almost 35 per cent of out-of-pocket expenses were spent on specialist services, while almost 25 per cent went to GP gap payments; and
> a further 12 per cent was spent on diagnostic imaging services, like radiology.
Greg Hunt's tweet has definitely avoided facing the Medicare elephant in the room.
* Based on MyHealthyCommunities: Patients' out-of-pocket spending on Medicare services 2016–17 released August 2018.
ABC News reported* on 17 August 2018 that:
> 1.3 million people delay seeing a doctor because of the cost;
> 1 in 2 Australian patients faced out-of-pocket costs for non-hospital Medicare services, with the median cost sitting at $142 per person;
> almost 35 per cent of out-of-pocket expenses were spent on specialist services, while almost 25 per cent went to GP gap payments; and
> a further 12 per cent was spent on diagnostic imaging services, like radiology.
Greg Hunt's tweet has definitely avoided facing the Medicare elephant in the room.
* Based on MyHealthyCommunities: Patients' out-of-pocket spending on Medicare services 2016–17 released August 2018.
Sunday 5 August 2018
Tell me again why the Turnbull Government is insisting My Health Record will become mandatory by the end of October 2018?
It is not just ordinary health care consumers who have concerns about the My Health Record database, system design, privacy issues and ethical considerations.
It is not just the Turnbull Government which has not sufficiently prepared public and private health care organisations for the nationwide rollout of mass personal and health information collection - the organisations themselves are not ready.
Lewis Ryan (Academic GP Registrar) |
* 65% of GP Registrars have never discussed My Health Record with a patient
* 78% of GP Registrars have never received training in how to use My Health Record
* 73% of GP Registrars say lack of training is a barrier to using My Health Record
* 71% of GP Registrars who have used the My Health Record system say that the user interface is a barrier
* Only 21% of GP Registrars believe privacy is well protected in the My Health Record system
In fact Australia-wide only 6,510 general practice organisations to date have registered to use My Health Record and these would only represent a fraction of the 35,982 GPs practicing across the country in 2016-17.
UPDATE
Healthcare
IT News, 3
August 2018:
The Federal Government’s Health Care Homes is
forcing patients to have a My Health Record to receive chronic care management
through the program, raising ethical questions and concerns about
discrimination.
The government’s Health Care Homes trial provides
coordinated care for those with chronic and complex diseases through more than
200 GP practices and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services
nationally, and enrolment in the program requires patients to have a My
Health Record or be willing to get one.
But GP and former AMA president Dr Kerryn
Phelps claimed the demand for patients to sign up to the national health
database to access Health Care Homes support is unethical.
“I have massive ethical concerns about that,
particularly given the concerns around privacy and security of My Health
Record. It is discriminatory and it should be removed,” Phelps told Healthcare IT News Australia.
Under a two-year trial beginning in late 2017, up
to 65,000 people are eligible to become Health Care Homes patients as part of a
government-funded initiative to improve care for those with long-term
conditions including diabetes, arthritis, and heart and lung diseases.
Patients in the program receive coordinated care
from a team including their GP, specialists and allied health professionals and
according to the Department of Health: “All Health Care Homes’ patients need to
have a My Health Record. If you don’t have a My Health Record, your care
team will sign you up.”
Phelps said as such patients who don’t want a My
Health Record have been unable to access a health service they would otherwise
be entitled to.
“When you speak to doctors who are in involved in
the Heath Care Homes trial, their experience is that some patients are refusing
to sign up because they don’t want a My Health Record. So it is a
discriminatory requirement.”
It has also raised concerns about possible future
government efforts to compel Australians to have My Health Records.
“The general feedback I’m getting is that the
Health Care Homes trial is very disappointing to say the least but,
nonetheless, what this shows is that signing up to My Health Record could just
be made a prerequisite to sign up for other things like Centrelink payments or
workers compensation.”
Human rights lawyer and Digital Rights Watch board
member Lizzie O’Shea claims patients should have a right to choose whether they
are signed up to the government’s online medical record without it affecting
their healthcare.
“It is deeply concerning to see health services
force their patients to use what has clearly been shown to be a flawed and
invasive system. My Health Record has had sustained criticism from privacy
advocates, academics and health professionals, and questions still remain to be
answered on the privacy and security of how individual's data will be stored,
accessed and protected,” O’Shea said. [my yellow highlighting]
Tuesday 22 May 2018
AUSTRALIA 2018: Turnbull Government continues to hammer the vulnerable
Remember when reading this that the Turnbull Government is still intending to proceed with its planned further corporate tax cuts reportedly worth an est. $65 billion. Compare this policy with the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) funding in Budget 2018-19 which is $43 billion over four years and no dedicated NDIS funding stream established as had been previously promised.
JOINT STATEMENT ON THE
NDIA’S SPECIALIST DISABILITY ACCOMMODATION PROVIDER AND INVESTOR BRIEF
The National Disability
Insurance Agency (NDIA) presented its latest policy position for Specialist
Disability Accommodation (SDA) in a statement to the provider and investor
market on 24 April.
People with disabilities
and developers of innovative housing for people with disabilities are pleased
the NDIA has reiterated the government’s commitment to SDA in its SDA Provider
and Investor Brief. The NDIA has confirmed that the SDA funding model is here
to stay.
However, the NDIA’s SDA
Brief expresses a vision for SDA housing with a clear bias toward shared models
of housing for people with disability, presumably to reduce support costs. This
is unacceptable. You can read our joint statement here (A Rich text format is available here).
The
Australian,
16 May 2018:
The executives of the
flagship National Disability Insurance Scheme, which received guaranteed
funding worth tens of billions of dollars in last week’s budget, have launched
a crackdown on support funding to keep a lid on ballooning costs.
The razor is being taken
to hundreds, possibly thousands, of annual support plans as they come up for
review, demonstrating a new hawkish approach from National Disability
Insurance Agency bosses but resulting in the loss of funding and support for
vulnerable families. In many cases, support packages for families have been cut
by half.
The early years of the
$22 billion program’s rollout saw wild variability in the value and type of
support being granted to participants, forcing executives to come up with a way
to claw back funding that has “an impact on sustainability”. In the process,
people with disabilities and their families have been shocked by sudden
reversals of fortune….
In its quarterly report,
the NDIA noted there was a “mismatch” between reference packages — rough
cookie-cutter guides for how much packages ought to be in normal circumstances
— and the value of annual support packages which affected the financial
sustainability of the scheme.
“The management’s
response to this is to closely ensure that significant variations away from
reference amounts (above and below) are closely monitored and justified,” a
spokesman said.
“Reference packages are
not used as a tool to reduce package amounts to below what is reasonable and
necessary. Individual circumstances are considered in determining budgets,
including goals and aspirations.
“A reference package
does not restrict the amount or range of support provided to a participant, but
acts as a starting point for planners to use for similar cohorts. It provides
amounts that are suitable for a given level of support needs that has been
adjusted for individual circumstances.”
The agency has claimed
the implementation of this process has started to reduce funding blowouts and a
hearing into the scheme by federal parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on the
NDIS last Friday heard startling evidence about how widespread the new approach
is.
Donna Law, whose
21-year-old son has severe disabilities, was told by an NDIS planner: “Donna,
watch out because your son’s next plan is going to be cut by about half.”
Clare Steve had funding
cut in half by the NDIA and wanted to do another review.
“I spoke to multiple
people, because no one would actually give me the paperwork to do the next lot
of reviewing,” Ms Steve told the hearing.
“I was told by multiple
people that it was a mistake: ‘Do not go for another review.
“If you go for another
review, you could get your funding cut again’.”
ABC News, 19 May 2018:
ABC News, 19 May 2018:
Bureaucrats are reportedly working on a strategy to curb costs by tightening up the eligibility requirements after a blowout in the number families seeking NDIS support packages for people with autism.
ABC
News, 19 May
2018:
Last December, Sam's
case was one of about 14,000 sitting in the NDIS's review backlog, according to a damning
ombudsman's report this week. Then, about 140,000 participants were in
the scheme.
The review queue has
since shrunk, but the agency in charge of the world-first scheme — a
Commonwealth department known as the National Disability Insurance Agency
(NDIA) — still receives about 640 review requests each week.
Some of those requests
do not reflect badly on the NDIA. People can request an unscheduled review if
their circumstances change, for example if their condition improves.
But the agency often is
culpable when it comes to another type of review, known as an internal review.
People ask for these when they disagree with the plan and funding package they
are given.
Some reviews come from
people who feel short-changed, given the state government support they
previously received, or because of the high expectations associated with the
scheme.
But the Government is
also to blame. The NDIS's full-scheme launch in mid-2016 was a disaster.
The computer system failed. A backlog of NDIS applications quickly emerged.
Plans were then often
completed over the phone and rushed. Key staff lacked training and experience.
There was little consistency in the decisions being made.
The scheme's IT system
remains hopeless, and elements of its bureaucracy are not much better,
according to the watchdog's report.
The agency accepted all
20 of the ombudsman's recommendations, and Social Services Minister Dan Tehan
said work was underway to bust the backlog "over coming months".
* In February 2018, the
NDIA advised around 8,100 reviews remained in the backlog and the national
backlog team was clearing around 200 reviews each week. The NDIA also advised
it continues to receive around 620 new review requests each week, which are
handled by regional review staff.
* We have received
complaints about the NDIA’s handling of participant-initiated requests for
review. In particular, these complaints concern the NDIA: (1) not acknowledging
requests for review; (2) not responding to enquiries about the status of a
request; or (3) actioning requests for an internal review as requests for a
plan review.
*Participants also
complained they had sought updates on the receipt and/or progress of their
requests by calling the Contact Centre and by telephoning or emailing local
staff. They reported not receiving a response, leaving messages that were not
returned and being told someone would contact them—but no one did.
* In our view, the
absence of clear guidance to staff about the need to acknowledge receipt of
review requests is concerning. Indeed, the large number of complaints to our Office
where complainants are unclear about the status of their review indicates the
lack of a standardised approach to acknowledgements is driving additional,
unnecessary contact with both the NDIA and our Office.
* Our Office monitors
and reports on complaint themes each quarter. Review delays was the top
complaint issue for all four quarters in 2017.
* Some participants have
told us they have been waiting for up to eight or nine months for a decision on
their review request, without any update on its progress or explanation of the
time taken.
In some instances, the
participant’s existing plan has expired before the NDIA has made a decision on
their request for review. As review decisions can only be made prospectively,
it can mean a participant must go through the whole process for the new
(routinely reviewed) plan if they remain unhappy.
Wednesday 16 May 2018
An insider has finally admitted what any digital native would be well aware of - your personal health information entered into a national database will be no safer that having it up on Facebook
Remembering that a federal government national screening program, working with with a private entity, has already accessed personal information from Medicare without consent of registered individuals and entered these persons into a research program - again without consent - and these individuals apparently could not easily opt out of being listed as a research subject but were often only verbally offered the option of declining to take part in testing, which presumably meant that health data from other sources was still capable of being collected about them by the program. One has to wonder what the Turnbull Government and medical establishment actually consider patient rights to be in practice when it comes to "My Health Record".
Healthcare IT News, 4 May 2018:
Weeks
before the anticipated announcement of the My Health Record opt out period, an
insider’s leak has claimed the Australian Digital Health Agency has decided associated
risks for consumers “will not be explicitly discussed on the website”.
As
the ADHA heads towards the imminent announcement of the three-month window in
which Australians will be able to opt out of My Health Record before being
signed up to the online health information repository, the agency was caught by
surprise today when details emerged in a blog post by GP and member of the
steering group for the national expansion of MHR, Dr Edwin Kruys.
Kruys wrote that MHR offers “clear benefits”
to healthcare through providing clinicians with greater access to discharge
summaries, pathology and diagnostic reports, prescription records and more, but
said “every digital solution has its pros and cons” and behind-the-scenes risk
mitigation has been one of the priorities of the ADHA. However, he claimed
Australians may not be made aware of the risks involved in allowing their
private medical information to be shared via the Federal Government’s system.
“It
has been decided that the risks associated with the MyHR will not be explicitly
discussed on the website,” Kruys wrote.
“This
obviously includes the risk of cyber attacks and public confidence in the
security of the data.”
The
most contentious contribution in the post related to the secondary use of
Australians’ health information, the framework of which has yet to be announced
by Health Minister Greg Hunt.
Contacted
by HITNA, the agency moved swiftly to have Kruys delete the paragraph
relating to secondary use.
In
the comment that has since been removed, Kruys wrote, “Many consumers and
clinicians regard secondary use of the MyHR data as a risk. The MyHR will
contain a ‘toggle’, giving consumers the option to switch secondary use of
their own data on or off.”
Under
the My Health Records Act 2012, health information in MHR may be
collected, used and disclosed “for any purpose” with the consent of the
healthcare recipient. One of the functions of the system operator is “to
prepare and provide de-identified data for research and public health
purposes”.
Before
these provisions of the act will be implemented, a framework for secondary use
of MHR systems data must be established.
HealthConsult
was engaged to assist the Federal Government in developing a draft framework
and implementation plan for the process and within its public consultation
process in 2017 received supportive submissions from the Australasian College
of Health Informatics, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and numerous
research institutes, universities, and clinicians’ groups.
Computerworld, 14 May 2018:
Use of both de-identified
data and, in some circumstances, identifiable data will be permitted under a
new government framework for so-called “secondary use” of data derived from the
national eHealth record system. Linking data from the My Health Record system
to other datasets is also allowed under some circumstances.
The Department of Health
last year commissioned
the development of the framework for using My Health Record data for
purposes other than its primary purpose of providing healthcare to an
individual.
Secondary use can
include research, policy analysis and work on improving health services.
Under the new framework,
individuals who don’t want their data used for secondary purposes will be
required to opt-out. The opt-out process is separate from the procedure
necessary for individuals who don’t want an eHealth
record automatically created for them (the government last year
decided to shift to an opt-out
approach for My Health Record)……
Access to the data will
be overseen by an MHR Secondary Use of Data Governance Board, which will
approve applications to access the system.
Any Australian-based
entity with the exception of insurance agencies will be permitted to apply for
access the MHR data. Overseas-based applicants “must be working in
collaboration with an Australian applicant” for a project and will not have
direct access to MHR data.
The data drawn from the
records may not leave Australia, but under the framework there is scope for
data analyses and reports produced using the data to be shared internationally……
The Department of Health
came under fire in 2016 after it released for download supposedly
anonymised health data. Melbourne University researchers were able to
successfully re-identify a range of data.
Last month the Office of
the Australian Information Commissioner revealed that health
service providers accounted for almost a quarter of the breaches reported
in the first six weeks of operation of the Notifiable Data Breach (NDB) scheme.
The Sydney Morning Herald,
14 May 2018:
Australians who don't
want a personal electronic health record will have from July 16 to October 15
to opt-out of the national scheme the federal government announced on Monday.
Every Australian will
have a My Health Record unless they choose to opt-out during the three-month
period, according to the Australian Digital Health Agency.
The
announcement follows the release of the government’s secondary use of data
rules earlier this month that inflamed concerns of patient privacy and data
use.
Under the framework,
medical information would be made available to third parties from 2020 -
including some identifying data for public health and research purposes -
unless individuals opted out.
In other news.......
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
14 May 2018:
A cyber attack on Family
Planning NSW's website has exposed the personal information of up to 8000
clients, including women who have booked appointments or sought advice
about abortion, contraception and other services.
Clients received an
email from FPNSW on Monday alerting them that their website had been hacked on
Anzac Day.
The compromised data
contained information from roughly 8000 clients who had contacted FPNSW via its
website in the past 2½ years to make appointments or give feedback.
It included the personal
details clients entered via an online form, including names, contact details,
dates of birth and the reason for their enquiries….
The website was secured
by 10am on April 26, 2018 and all web database information has been secure
since that time
SBS
News, 14 May
2018:
Clients were told Family
Planning NSW was one of several agencies targeted by cybercriminals who
requested a bitcoin ransom on April 25…..
The not-for-profit has
five clinics in NSW, with more than 28,000 people visiting every year.
The most recent Digital
Rights Watch State of Digital Rights (May 2018) report can be found here.
The report’s
8 recommendations include:
Repeal
of the mandatory metadata retention scheme
Introduction
of a Commonwealth statutory civil cause of action for serious invasions of
privacy
A
complete cessation of commercial espionage conducted by the Australian Signals
Directorate
Changes
to copyright laws so they are flexible, transparent and provide due process to
users
Support
for nation states to uphold the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child in the digital age
Expand
the definition of sensitive information under the Privacy Act to specifically
include behavioural biometrics
Increase
measures to educate private businesses and other entities of their
responsibilities under the Privacy Act regarding behavioural biometrics, and
the right to pseudonymity
Introduce
a compulsory register of entities that collect static and behavioural biometric
data, to provide the public with information about the entities that are
collecting biometric data and for what purpose
The
loopholes opened with the 2011 reform of the FOI laws should be closed by
returning ASD, ASIO, ASIS and other intelligence agencies to the ambit of the
FOI Act, with the interpretation of national security as a ground for refusal
of FOI requests being reviewed and narrowed
Telecommunications
providers and internet platforms must develop processes to increase
transparency in content moderation and, make known what content was removed or triggered an account suspension.
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