Privacy

1. Privacy Policy

This Policy describes how information that is provided to us is protected and how it may be used and disclosed. Please read this Policy carefully.

Precedence Health Care Pty Ltd (Precedence Health Care) is dedicated to protecting the privacy, security and confidentiality of your personal health information.

When we refer to ourselves as “we” or “Precedence Health Care” we mean Precedence Health Care Pty Ltd and our entire company, including any company that we own or control.

When we refer to “you”, we are referring to a cdmNet member who is either a consumer or someone who is authorised or entitled to make a decision on their behalf (such as a parent making a decision for a minor).

We comply with the Victorian Health Records Act 2001 and the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1998.

The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to inform you about our information management practices. When you use our site, you accept the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy applies to personal information which we may collect about you when you use cdmNet.

2. What kind of information do we hold about you?

Information that could be used to identify or contact you is referred to as “personal information”.

When your personal information is combined with information relating to your health or medical status, it is called “personal health information”. The Commonwealth Privacy Act describes it as “sensitive information”.

3. Registration

Information that could be used to identify or contact you is referred to as “personal information”.

When your personal information is combined with information relating to your health or medical status, it is called “personal health information”. The Commonwealth Privacy Act describes it as “sensitive information”.

4. Your Information

You should assume that all information entered about you into cdmNet by you or your health care providers will be recorded in the Precedence Health Care database for future use and retrieval.

There may be unforeseen or unanticipated occasions when this may not occur, for example, there may be a technical reason the data is not saved, such as the Internet fails prior to saving.

If you are entering important data into your record, it is always advisable that you review the data to confirm that it has been properly saved in the Precedence Health Care database for future retrieval.

5. Cookies

We use ‘per-session’ cookies to identify your browser during the time that you are logged in to cdmNet. By temporarily storing this cookie on your computer, we avoid having to re-authenticate you on every secure page you visit in our site. The cookie is deleted when you log out of cdmNet and does not contain any personally identifiable information.

If your browser is set to disallow ‘per-session’ cookies, or if you reject the cookie, you will not be able to use our websites.

6. How Do We Use the Information that we Collect from you?

Precedence Health will not on-sell your personal health information for profit under any circumstances, although we reserve the right to on-sell de-identified data (that is, data from which it is impossible to ascertain who you are) to persons or organisations who are engaged in research, clinical trials, analyses and like activity.

Precedence Health Care uses email addresses and phone numbers provided by you to assist in communicating with you;
The registration details provided by the GP allow us to identify your cdmNet account;
We use your health information to generate care management plans and team care plans, to monitor your care against these plans, and to help you adhere to these plans by sending you reminders and alerts when considered appropriate;
We also share your health information with your care team as approved by your doctor. We may also make this information available to some hospitals and emergency services for the purpose of providing appropriate health services to you;
We may create aggregated data about groups of cdmNet members in order to analyse usage trends and improve our services to you. ‘Aggregated Data’ is non-identifiable information from you and other users that tell us a story about the usage of the website in general, for example, that X% of members are female.

7. We Will Keep Information about you Secure

We are committed to protecting and securing your personal health information. The data is protected by logical, physical and operational security measures of high commercial standard and the data storage facility is professionally managed.

We have implemented appropriate technology and security policies, rules and other measures to protect the personal information that we have under our control from unauthorised access, improper use, alteration, unlawful or accidental destruction, and accidental loss.

Your account information is located on a secured server behind a firewall. When you enter sensitive information, we encrypt that information using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology.

The security policy, issues and practices are regularly reviewed and up-dated, and are subject to bona fide audit procedures for external analysis by suitably qualified organisations.

Where it is lawful and practicable to do so, we will allow you to remain anonymous or use a pseudonym, but we do not accept responsibility for any loss or damage suffered by you as a consequence.

8. Who May Have Access to your Information?

We share your health information with your doctor, your care team as authorised by your doctor, and possibly some hospitals and emergency services for the purpose of providing you health care.

In addition, we may contract with other companies and individuals to help us provide services to you. For example, we may host some of our websites on another company’s computers and hire technical consultants to maintain our online health tools and provide customer service. In order to perform their jobs, these other companies or consultants may have limited access to some of the personal health information we maintain about you. It is our policy to require all such individuals and companies to comply with the terms of this Privacy Policy and internal privacy protection procedures and to limit their access to any information to the minimum necessary to perform their obligations.

If we need to share information with any other third parties, we will require that they agree in writing to abide by our Privacy Policy.

We will take all reasonable steps to protect your personal and personal health information from misuse, loss and unauthorised handling. If we discover any misuse or unauthorised handling, you will be notified and we will take immediate steps to contain the problem and prevent further occurrences.

9. Who May We Disclose your Information to?

We store your information in a secure environment and will only allow disclosure of your personal information or personal health information to someone other than your health provider when we believe such release is required or authorised by law. We may, for example, release personal health information, including information from a medical record if, in our judgment and, if appropriate, after review by a lawyer, the release is compelled by a law, or if the release is necessary to prevent the death or serious injury of an individual.

Other than the cases described above, we will not release personally identifiable information to a third party without your written consent. Also, if we ask your consent, we will use our best efforts to specify precisely the nature and scope of the consent that you give.

10. Accessing Your Own Health Information and Plans

You can access your personal health information and care plans by becoming a registered user of cdmNet and obtaining a login name and password. This will enable you to log into cdmNet via the cdmNet website and view all the information about you that we share with the care team.

Alternatively, you can contact the Precedence Health Care Privacy Officer at the contact numbers below. Provided we can properly identify you (by asking you personal details and for other documentary evidence), we will release your health information to you.

11. Can You Delete Your Records?

You may, at any time, choose to manually correct, up-date or delete any personal information, or personal health information, which you have entered into your cdmNet record.

There may be some personal health information that can only be changed or updated by the health care professional who created it.

You may at any time de-activate your account by contacting Precedence Health Care. If you de-activate your account, your health record will no longer be accessible to you, your carer/s or any healthcare providers.

12. How Secure are links to other websites?

cdmNet contains hyperlinks to external websites. A separate browser window is opened to access the other website so that the SSL link to cdmNet remains intact and the cdmNet session remains active and secure.

Our cdmNet advisers have selected these linked websites as being generally of high quality; however Precedence Health Care takes no responsibility for the content or use of information from these sites.

Precedence Health Care has not assessed the privacy or security standards used by linked websites and is not responsible for the quality, privacy or security of these sites. Members are advised to read the privacy policies of linked websites.

13. What will happen if this Privacy Policy Changes?

Changes will have regard to the need to maintain strict standards of personal privacy and comply with the latest privacy recommendations.
Minor changes to the policy may occur that will not affect our use of individually identifiable health information. When the Privacy Policy changes in a way that potentially has a material effect on the way we handle personal information, we will not use the information we have previously gathered without obtaining consent from the appropriate individual.

We will endeavour to post changes to our Privacy Policy on our Websites in a timely manner.

14. What should I do if I feel that Precedence Health Care is not abiding by its posted Privacy Policy?

If you feel that Precedence Health Care is not abiding by its posted Privacy Policy, please contact cdmNet administration at support@precedencehealthcare.com, or contact us at the support phone number provided on our website.

Alternatively, if the situation is not resolved to your satisfaction, then you can contact the Health Services or Privacy Commissioner in your local area.

15. Privacy Questions or Concerns about cdmNet

For privacy questions or concerns about cdmNet please contact the Precedence Health Care Privacy Officer on (03) 9023 0800, email privacy@precedencehealthcare.com, or contact us at the support phone number provided on our website.