17 Jun Merivale Medical Practice
Privacy Statement
Our practice is committed to meeting our obligations under the Health Information Privacy Code (HIPC) to protect the privacy of your health information. To ensure that we meet our obligations we have:
• trained our staff in the Health Information Privacy Code
• appointed a privacy officer. The privacy officer for our practice is our Practice Manager Helen Nesbit. If you wish to speak to her, please contact reception.
• developed a privacy policy for our practice
• have available a privacy brochure “Your health information, Know your privacy rights”.
For further information you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner on 0800 803 909 or go to the website www.privacy.org.nz
Please note that this practice is contributing to, and accessing healthcare information from HealthOne.
What is HealthOne?
HealthOne is a South Island based secure electronic record that allows registered healthcare providers directly involved in your healthcare, to quickly access information such as your test results, allergies, medications, GP summaries and hospital information.
HealthOne strictly adheres to the principles of the Privacy Act 2020 as well as the Rules set out in the Health Information Privacy Code 2020. Access is only possible via an approved highly secure healthcare information network which is regularly audited and tested. Privacy auditing is used to check that only those directly involved in your care are accessing your information.
To find out more about HealthOne please visit https://healthone.org.nz/.
Please note that you are entitled to restrict the sharing of your healthcare records by contacting 0508 837 872 or emailing HealthOne.privacy@pegasus.health.nz
Managing patient information
We have systems in place to maintain confidentiality and to safeguard patient information:
• robust IT Security and Generative AI policies, and systems designed to protect the electronic health information of patients
• secure methods are used to transfer patient records
• our physical environment is laid out so that health information can’t be seen or overheard
• we collect, use, and store health information in accordance with legislation
• privacy breaches are managed appropriately, and reported to the Privacy Commissioner | Te Mana Mātāpono Matatapu, and the affected parties.
We may receive patient information from other sources where this is needed for health care or required by law, for example other health and social services, laboratories, radiology providers, ACC and Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora. This type of indirect collection is explained to patients in the privacy statement we provide at enrolment. Because we take these reasonable steps to explain routine indirect collection in advance, we are generally not required to notify patients every time we receive information about them from these kinds of sources.