No, the Morrison Coalition Government has not suddenly developed empathy for others, a genuine understanding of its obligations under international law or a measure of respect for Australian courts.
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Wednesday 24 October 2018
Morrison Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government begins to position itself for forthcoming federal election
No, the Morrison Coalition Government has not suddenly developed empathy for others, a genuine understanding of its obligations under international law or a measure of respect for Australian courts.
Sensing the
growing threat to its chance of holding onto government Messrs. Scott Morrison
and Peter Dutton are finally allowing very ill children detained in offshore
detention on Nauru to enter Australia for medical treatment.
ABC
News, 22
October 2018:
Australian Border Force
officials have revealed 11 children were transferred off Nauru today for
medical attention, with another 52 minors remaining on the Pacific island.
Officials have amended
the figure to 11 after initially saying it was 16.
The update comes as the
federal Greens float a compromise agreement that could allow families to
resettle in New Zealand with their families.
The Federal Government
has indicated it may accept New Zealand's offer to take up to 150
refugees, but only if legislation passes Parliament ensuring people sent to
offshore detention can never travel to Australia.
Home Affairs secretary
Michael Pezzullo said that legislation, which has been sitting in Federal
Parliament since 2016, would close a "back door" to dissuade further
boat arrivals.
According to the latest
figures, there are 652 people on Nauru, with 541 classed as refugees and 23 as
failed asylum seekers. The status of another 88 is yet to be determined.
The United States has
accepted 276 people as part of a resettlement deal and rejected an additional
148.
There is growing
pressure from crossbench MPs for the Government to accept New Zealand's offer,
with incoming independent Kerryn Phelps describing the issue as a first
priority.
The Greens are now open
to considering a travel ban for the group, but only if all children are first
brought to Australia for medical treatment, and restrictions only applied to
the cohort sent to New Zealand.
"We need to put the
politics aside and look after these children, who are being traumatised and
brutalised right now," leader Richard Di Natale told the ABC.
"If resettlement
after that means resettlement in New Zealand with limited restrictions, just on
that group, that's something we will consider.
"What we won't
consider is putting bans or restrictions [on] those people who have been left
behind.".....
Wednesday 29 August 2018
“Shit Life Syndrome” is sending Britons and Americans to an early grave…..
With Scott Morrison as the new prime minister, the Abbott-Turnbull era persistent attacks on the social fabric of the nation are bound to continue. Thus ensuring that Australians follow down the same path as Britain and America?
The
Guardian, 18
August 2018:
Britain
and America are in the midst of a barely reported public health crisis. They
are experiencing not merely a slowdown
in life expectancy, which in many other rich countries is continuing
to lengthen, but the start of an alarming increase in death rates across
all our populations, men and women alike. We are needlessly allowing our people
to die early.
In
Britain, life expectancy, which increased steadily for a century, slowed
dramatically between 2010 and 2016. The rate of increase dropped by 90% for
women and 76% for men, to 82.8 years and 79.1 years respectively. Now, death
rates among older people have so much increased over the last two years – with
expectations that this will continue – that two major insurance companies,
Aviva and Legal
and General, are releasing hundreds of millions of pounds they had been
holding as reserves to pay annuities to pay to shareholders instead. Society,
once again, affecting the citadels of high finance.
Trends
in the US are more serious and foretell what is likely to happen in Britain
without an urgent change in course. Death rates of people in
midlife (between 25 and 64) are increasing across the racial and ethnic
divide. It has long been known that the mortality rates of midlife American
black and Hispanic people have been worse than the non-Hispanic white
population, but last week the British Medical Journal
published an important study re-examining
the trends for all racial groups between 1999 and 2016.
The
malaises that have plagued the black population are extending to the
non-Hispanic, midlife white population. As the report states: “All cause
mortality increased… among non-Hispanic whites.” Why? “Drug overdoses were the
leading cause of increased mortality in midlife, but mortality also increased
for alcohol-related conditions, suicides and organ diseases involving multiple
body systems” (notably liver, heart diseases and cancers).
US
doctors coined a phrase for this condition: “shit-life syndrome”. Poor
working-age Americans of all races are locked in a cycle of poverty and
neglect, amid wider affluence. They are ill educated and ill trained. The jobs
available are drudge work paying the minimum wage, with minimal or no job
security. They are trapped in poor neighbourhoods where the prospect of owning
a home is a distant dream. There is little social housing, scant income support
and contingent access to healthcare.
Finding meaning in life is close to
impossible; the struggle to survive commands all intellectual and emotional
resources. Yet turn on the TV or visit a middle-class shopping mall and a very
different and unattainable world presents itself. Knowing that you are
valueless, you resort to drugs, antidepressants and booze. You eat junk food
and watch your ill-treated body balloon. It is not just poverty, but growing
relative poverty in an era of rising inequality, with all its psychological
side-effects,
that is the killer.
Shit-life
syndrome captures the truth that the bald medical statistics have economic and
social roots. Patients so depressed they are prescribed or seek opioids – or
resort to alcohol – are suffering not so much from their demons but from the
circumstances of their lives. They have a lot to be depressed about. They, and
tens of millions like them teetering on the edge of the same condition,
constitute Donald Trump’s electoral base, easily tempted by rhetoric that pins
the blame on dark foreigners, while castigating countries such as Finland or
Denmark, where the trends are so much better, as communist. In Britain, they
were heavily represented among the swing voters who delivered Brexit.
Read the full
article here.
NOTE: The last time the United States saw a prolonged life expectancy decrease due to natural causes was during the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1917-1919 when life expectancy fell by twelve years.
Labels:
access & equity,
economics,
health,
inequality,
life expectancy,
society
Tuesday 7 August 2018
Australian Digital Health Agency is considering adding DNA data to My Health Record
Crikey.com.au, 6 April 2018:
DNA DEBATE
The federal government’s
controversial My Health Record program is capable of storing genomic data, such
as cancer risks, using technology that both has huge research applications and
highlights privacy and security concerns.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that
genome-sequencing company Genome.One, which can track genetic variations and
therefore disease risks, has built “necessary infrastructure” for uploading
sensitive genomic data into the opt-out system.
University of Canberra privacy expert Bruce
Arnold has criticised the inherent risks of DNA-tracking technology and,
just a week after the government backdown on police access to My Health Records, today’s news as
again demonstrating a lack public consultation.
The Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) which is responsibe for My Health Record gave Genome.One, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Garvan Institute, $40,000 in September 2017 to support the development of this software.
Its GoExplore™ software provides sequencing and analyses of patients’ DNA samples to assesses their risk of developing 52 hereditary conditions, including 31 cancers, 13 heart conditions, as well several other conditions where monitoring or intervention can be of benefit.
In a change of focus, Genome.One and The Garvan Institute are reportedly no longer offering clinical reporting for genetic disease diagnosis or personal health genomics in Australia. This service was priced at $6,400 plus GST, with no Medicare rebate.
Staffing numbers in Genome.One have been severely cut, new capital is being sought and, Gavan has
stated that it intends to spin off Genome.One
software into a new company in which it will be a minority shareholder.
However, Genome.One still intends to pilot its genomics technology integrated into GP practice software and on !8 April 2018 its CEO stated; “We're working with some electronic medical record providers and we're hoping that we can get a trial underway at some point this year”.
Labels:
Big Brother,
big data,
data retention,
genetics,
health,
information technology,
privacy,
safety
Thursday 2 August 2018
NSW Roads & Maritime Services finally come clean: We don't give a damn about any of the concerns Woombah & Iluka residents have about our asphalt plant, it's only Pacific Complete's bottom line that matters
ROADS and Martime
Services has revealed it will build at least two asphalt batching plants near
the Pacific Highway, most likely between Tyndale and the Iluka turnoff, next
year.
Pacific Highway general
manager Bob Higgins said the RMS has pressed the pause button on construction
of one plant at Woombah, but the need to supply the Glenugie to Iluka Rd
turnoff section with 170,000 tonnes of asphalt would require two plants.
He said the RMS would
review the supply strategy for the manufacture and delivery of asphalt on the
stretch of highway upgrade after protests from the Woombah community.
But Mr Higgins said if push came to shove when the RMS
review decided on locations, residents’ objections would take second place to
the technical needs of the project. [my yellow highlighting]
What a travesty Pacific Highway Upgrade community consultations are cannot get much clearer than this.
I'm sure local residents will not be pleased to have their fears confirmed.
I'm sure local residents will not be pleased to have their fears confirmed.
Whether he meant to or not, Bob Higgins
has probably just cemented the proposed Woombah asphalt batching site as a March 2019 NSW
state election issue in the Clarence electorate for both the NSW National
Party and the Berejiklian Coalition Government.
No-one likes to be told their valid concerns - about environmental impact, road safety, air quality and potential reduction in tourism numbers which underpin the local economy - don't matter to the state government down in Sydney.
BACKGROUND
No-one likes to be told their valid concerns - about environmental impact, road safety, air quality and potential reduction in tourism numbers which underpin the local economy - don't matter to the state government down in Sydney.
BACKGROUND
Labels:
#BerejiklianGovernmentFAIL,
environment,
health,
Iluka,
NSW Nationals,
Pacific Highway,
roads,
safety,
Woombah
Sunday 29 July 2018
When it comes to My Heath Record the words horse, stable, door, spring to mind
In January
2016 the Australian Digital Health
Agency (ADHA) became a corporate Commonwealth established under the Public Governance,
Performance and Accountability (Establishing the Australian Digital Health
Agency) Rule.
It has a
board appointed by the Minister for Health in whose portfolio it is situated and the board is the accountable
body of the ADHA.
Currently Mr Jim Birch AM, Chair. Mr Rob Bransby, Dr Eleanor Chew, Dr Elizabeth Deven, Ms Lyn McGrath, Ms Stephanie Newell, Dr Bennie Ng, Professor Johanna Westbrook and Michael Walsh sit on this board.
Currently Mr Jim Birch AM, Chair. Mr Rob Bransby, Dr Eleanor Chew, Dr Elizabeth Deven, Ms Lyn McGrath, Ms Stephanie Newell, Dr Bennie Ng, Professor Johanna Westbrook and Michael Walsh sit on this board.
The executive team is headed by Tim Kelsey as CEO, with Professor Meredith Makeham as Chief Medical Adviser and Bettina McMahon, Ronan O’Connor, Terrance Seymour & Dr. Monica Trujillo as the four executive managers.
ADHA is also
the designated Systems Operator for My
Health Record which currently
holds the personal health information of 5.98 million people across the country
and will add the remaining 19 million after 15 October 2018 unless they opt
out of being included in this national database.
Given the potential size of this database the question of cyber security springs to mind.
It seems that the Australian Digital Health Agency has not been independently audited for cyber resilience by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) ahead of beginning the mammoth task of collecting and collating the personal heath information of those19 million people.
Australian National Audit Office, Potential audit: 2018-19:
Management of cyber security risks in My Health Record
Australian National Audit Office, Potential audit: 2018-19:
Management of cyber security risks in My Health Record
The audit would examine the effectiveness of the Australian Digital Health Agency’s management of cyber security risks associated with the implementation and ongoing maintenance of the My Health Record system.
My Health Record creates a record of Australians’ interactions with healthcare providers, and more than 5.5 million Australians have a My Health Record. The audit would focus on whether adequate controls are in place to protect the privacy and integrity of individual records.It seems that the Australian general public still only has the honeypot's dubious word that it cannot be raided by unauthorised third parties.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has reacted to growing community concern about the number of agencies which can access My Health Records with a vague promise of "refinements" and with this outright lie; "The fact is that there have been no privacy complaints or breaches with My Health Record in six years and there are over 6 million people with My Health Records".
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has recorded complaints and at least 242 individual My Health Records have been part of mandatory data breach reports in 2015-16 to 2016-17, with nine of the 51 reported breach events involving "the unauthorised access of a healthcare recipient’s My Health Record by a third party".
BACKGROUND
Intermedium, 8 May 2018:
Re-platforming options
for the My Health Record (MHR) system will soon be up for consideration, with
an Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) spokesperson confirming that a
request for information will be released in the next few months to inform plans
to modernise the infrastructure underpinning Australia’s mammoth patient health
database.
An open-source,
cloud-based environment has already
been flagged as a possibility for the MHR by Department of Health
(DoH) Special Adviser for Strategic trategic Health Systems and Information Management Paul Madden at Senate Estimates in May last year. He also said that the re-platforming decision was one of many “variables” that needed to be squared away to accurately gauge how much the MHR system will cost beyond 2019-20.
“The variables in there include the re-platforming of the system to an open source environment, using cloud technology… which will be something we will not know the cost of until we hit the market to get a view on that”, Madden said last year. “Our commitment is to come back to the budget in 2019 to paint out those costs for the four years beyond.”
ADHA is scoping out MHR re-platforming options early, with the existing contract with the Accenture-led consortium not set to expire until 2020. As the “National Infrastructure Operator”, Accenture is tasked with running and maintaining MHR’s infrastructure. The prime contractor works with Oracle and Orion Health to provide the core systems and portals behind MHR.
Accenture was awarded the contract to design, build, integrate and test the then-personally controlled electronic health record system (PCEHR) back in 2011, and has signed 13 contracts worth a total of $709.53 million with DoH in relation to the MHR in that time. With the original infrastructure now over seven years old, ADHA recognise the importance of modernising the environment supporting the MHR....
What happens to medical
records when opting out?
Dr Kerryn Phelps reminds
us that, if people don't opt out, the My Health Records Act
allows disclosure of patients' health information to police, courts and the ATO
without a warrant ("My Health Record backlash builds",
July 25). This would be in addition to "health information such as
allergies, medicines and immunisations" available for emergency staff.
How can the access be
restricted to emergency staff? How can only certain categories of information
be released when allergies and medication are part of general medical notes? I
was not reassured by "serious penalties relating to the misuse of
information do not apply to accidental misuse" on the website. I opted
out.
My GP has told me that, nonetheless, she will be obliged
to upload my records
- which sounds credible since I have formally opted out with the government,
not with my doctor's practice. So what happens -
does my health record get kicked off "the cloud"?
What exactly did I opt out of?
Denise De Vreeze [my yellow highlighting]
Denise De Vreeze [my yellow highlighting]
Labels:
#TurnbullFAIL,
Big Brother,
data retention,
health,
information technology,
privacy,
safety
Tuesday 24 July 2018
Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt is not being truthful about My Health Record and he knows it
On 16 July 2018 the Australian Minister for Health and Liberal MP for Flinders, Gregory Andrew 'Greg' Hunt, characterised My Health Record as a "secure summary" of an individual's key health information.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) tells a rather different story.
One where at least 242 individual My Health Records have been part of mandatory data breach reports in 2015-16 to 2016-17, with nine of the 51 reported breach events involving "the unauthorised access of a healthcare
recipient’s My Health Record by a third party".
A story which also involves at least 96 instances of Medicare uploading data to the wrong digital health records and also uploading claim information to another 123 My Health Records apparently without the knowledge or consent of the persons in whose names these My Health Records had been created.
There were other instances where MyGov
accounts held by healthcare recipients were incorrectly linked to the My
Health Records of other healthcare recipients.
Prior to the database name change and system change from opt-in to opt-out there had been another 9 data breaches of an unspecified nature reported, involving an unknown number of what are now called My Health Records.
More instances are now being aired in mainstream and social media where My Health Records were created by DHS Medicare Repository Services or other agents/agencies without the knowledge or consent of the individual in whose name the record had been created.
Prior to the database name change and system change from opt-in to opt-out there had been another 9 data breaches of an unspecified nature reported, involving an unknown number of what are now called My Health Records.
More instances are now being aired in mainstream and social media where My Health Records were created by DHS Medicare Repository Services or other agents/agencies without the knowledge or consent of the individual in whose name the record had been created.
Healthcare IT News 16 July 2018 |
If this is how the national e-health database was officially functioning malfunctioning by 30 June 2017, how on earth is the system going to cope when it attempts to create millions of new My Health Records after 15 October 2018?
On the first day of the 60 day opt-out period about 20,000 people refused to have a My Health Record automatically created for them and at least one Liberal MP has also opted out, the Member for Goldstein and member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport Tim Wilson.
Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull has stated his view that mass withdrawals will not kill the national digital health records system - perhaps because he and his government are possibly contemplating adopting the following three coercive recommendations found amongst the thirty-one recommendations included in the Siggins Miller November 2016 Evaluation of the Participation Trials for the My Health Record: Final Report:
NOTES
OAIC annual reports:
On the first day of the 60 day opt-out period about 20,000 people refused to have a My Health Record automatically created for them and at least one Liberal MP has also opted out, the Member for Goldstein and member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport Tim Wilson.
Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull has stated his view that mass withdrawals will not kill the national digital health records system - perhaps because he and his government are possibly contemplating adopting the following three coercive recommendations found amongst the thirty-one recommendations included in the Siggins Miller November 2016 Evaluation of the Participation Trials for the My Health Record: Final Report:
20. Use all mechanisms
available in commissioning and funding health services as vehicles to require
the use of the My Health Record to obtain funds where practical.
21. Consider ways to
require the use of the My Health Record system by all healthcare providers and
how to best use the Government’s purchasing power directly (e.g. in the aged
care sector), via new initiatives as they arise (such the Health Care Home
initiative) or via PHNs commissioning clinical services (e.g. require use of
the My Health Record system in all clinical and aged care services that receive
Commonwealth funds). Such requirements should have a timeframe within which
healthcare providers need to become compliant.
22. Explore with health
insurers how they could encourage preferred suppliers and clients to use the My
Health Record system as part of their push for preventive care and cost
containment.
That the My Health Record is not about improving health service delivery for individual patients is indicated by the fact that a My Health Record is retained by the National Repositories Service for between 30 and up to 130 years after death and, even during an individual's lifetime can be accessed by the courts, police, other government agencies and private corporations listed as research organisations requiring medical/lifestyle information for what is essentially commercial gain, at the discretion of the Secretary of the Department of Health or the Digital Health Agency Systems Operator. See: My Health Records Act 2012 (20 September 2017), Subdivision B - s63 to s70
To put it bluntly, this national database will allow federal government to monitor the personal lives of Australian citizens more closely, enforce civil & criminal law, monetise collated data for its own benefit and, weaponize the personal information collected anytime it feels threatened by dissenting opinion.
NOTES
OAIC annual reports:
The Guardian, 22 July 2018:
Australia’s impending My
Health Record system is “identical” to a failed
system in England that was cancelled after it was found to be selling
patient data to drug and insurance companies, a British privacy expert has
said.
My Health Record is a
digital medical record that stores
medical data and shares it between medical providers. In the UK, a similar
system called care.data was announced in 2014, but cancelled in 2016 after an
investigation found that drug and insurance companies were able to buy
information on patients’ mental health conditions, diseases and smoking habits.
The man in charge of
implementing My Health Record
in Australia, Tim Kelsey, was also in charge of setting up care.data.
Phil Booth, the
coordinator of British privacy group Medconfidential, said the similarities
were “extraordinary” and he expected the same privacy breaches to occur.
“The parallels are
incredible,” he said. “It looks like it is repeating itself, almost like a
rewind or a replay. The context has changed but what is plainly obvious to us
from the other side of the planet, is that this system seems to be the 2018
replica of the 2014 care.data.” [my yellow highlighting]
North Coast
Voices , 22 July 2018, Former
Murdoch journalist in charge of MyHealth records –what could possibly go wrong?
UPDATE
Australian
Parliamentary Library, Flagpost,
23 July 2018:
Section 70 of the My Health Records Act
2012 enables the System Operator (ADHA) to ‘use or disclose
health information’ contained in an individual’s My Health Record if the ADHA
‘reasonably believes that the use or disclosure is reasonably necessary’ to,
among other things, prevent, detect, investigate or prosecute any criminal
offence, breaches of a law imposing a penalty or sanction or breaches of a
prescribed law; protect the public revenue; or prevent, detect, investigate or
remedy ‘seriously improper conduct’. Although ‘protection of the public
revenue’ is not explained, it is reasonable to assume that this might include
investigations into potential fraud and other financial offences involving
agencies such as Centrelink, Medicare, or the Australian Tax Office. The
general wording of section 70 is a fairly standard formulation common to
various legislation—such as the Telecommunications
Act 1997—which appears to provide broad access to a wide range of agencies
for a wide range of purposes.
While this should mean
that requests for data by police, Home Affairs and other authorities will be
individually assessed, and that any disclosure will be limited to the minimum
necessary to satisfy the request, it represents a significant reduction in the
legal threshold for the release of private medical information to law
enforcement. Currently, unless a patient consents to the release of their
medical records, or disclosure is required to meet a doctor’s mandatory
reporting obligations (e.g. in cases of suspected child sexual abuse), law
enforcement agencies can only access a person’s records (via their doctor) with
a warrant, subpoena or court order....
It seems unlikely that
this level of protection and obligation afforded to medical records by the
doctor-patient relationship will be maintained, or that a doctor’s judgement
will be accommodated, once a patient’s medical record is uploaded to My Health
Record and subject to section 70 of the My Health Records Act 2012. The
AMA’s Guide
to Medical Practitioners on the use of the Personally Controlled Electronic
Health Record System (from 2012) does not clarify the situation.
Although it has
been reported that
the ADHA’s ‘operating policy is to release information only where the request
is subject to judicial oversight’, the My Health Records Act 2012 does
not mandate this and it does not appear that the ADHA’s operating policy is
supported by any rule or regulation. As legislation would normally take
precedence over an agency’s ‘operating policy’, this means that unless the ADHA
has deemed a request unreasonable, it cannot routinely require a law
enforcement body to get a warrant, and its operating policy can be ignored or
changed at any time.
The Health
Minister’s assertions that no one’s data can be used to ‘criminalise’
them and that ‘the Digital Health Agency has again reaffirmed today that
material … can only be accessed with a court order’ seem at odds with the
legislation which only requires a reasonable belief that disclosure of a
person’s data is reasonably necessary to prevent, detect, investigate or
prosecute a criminal offence…..
Although the disclosure
provisions of different agencies may be more or less strict than those of the
ADHA and the My Health Records Act 2012, the problem with the MHR system
is the nature of the data itself. As the Law Council of Australia notes,
‘the information held on a healthcare recipient’s My Health Record is regarded
by many individuals as highly sensitive and intimate’. The National Association
of People with HIV Australia has
suggested that ‘the department needs to ensure that an individual’s My
Health Record is bound to similar privacy protections as existing laws relating
to the privacy of health records’. Arguably, therefore, an alternative to the
approach of the current scheme would be for medical records registered in the
MHR system to be legally protected from access by law enforcement agencies to
at least the same degree as records held by a doctor.
Thursday 7 June 2018
Only 39 days to go until concerned Australian citizens can opt out of the Turnbull Government's collection of personal health information for its national database
Apparently this email is currently being sent out to registered Australian citizens.
Australian Digital Health Agency, email, 5 June 2018:
Hello,
You are receiving this email because you registered your email address at myhealthrecord.gov.au to find out more information about how to opt-out of the My Health Record system.
If you do not want a My Health Record, you must register your choice between 16 July and 15 October 2018 during the opt-out period. It is not possible to opt-out of having a record before the opt-out period starts.
The opt-out period will not apply to individuals who have previously chosen to have a My Health Record, or were included in the Nepean Blue Mountains or North Queensland opt-out trials in 2016. Individuals who have an existing My Health Record can cancel their record at any time. Instructions on cancelling a record can be found on the My Health Record website.
Once the opt-out period starts you will receive another email letting you know that the opt-out period has started and what to do if you still want to opt-out.
A My Health Record is a secure online summary of an individual’s key health information. 1 in 5 Australians already have one. It’s an individual’s choice who sees their My Health Record, what’s in it and who it is shared with. My Health Record has safeguards in place to protect an individuals’ information including encryption, firewalls and secure login.
For further information about the My Health Record, please visit the My Health Record website.
Thank you,
The My Health Record System Operator
www.digitalhealth.gov.au
You are receiving this email because you registered your email address at myhealthrecord.gov.au to find out more information about how to opt-out of the My Health Record system.
If you do not want a My Health Record, you must register your choice between 16 July and 15 October 2018 during the opt-out period. It is not possible to opt-out of having a record before the opt-out period starts.
The opt-out period will not apply to individuals who have previously chosen to have a My Health Record, or were included in the Nepean Blue Mountains or North Queensland opt-out trials in 2016. Individuals who have an existing My Health Record can cancel their record at any time. Instructions on cancelling a record can be found on the My Health Record website.
Once the opt-out period starts you will receive another email letting you know that the opt-out period has started and what to do if you still want to opt-out.
A My Health Record is a secure online summary of an individual’s key health information. 1 in 5 Australians already have one. It’s an individual’s choice who sees their My Health Record, what’s in it and who it is shared with. My Health Record has safeguards in place to protect an individuals’ information including encryption, firewalls and secure login.
For further information about the My Health Record, please visit the My Health Record website.
Thank you,
The My Health Record System Operator
www.digitalhealth.gov.au
[my yellow highlighting]
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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