PATIENT PRIVACY STATEMENT
Southport Day Hospital (SDH) is bound by the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and other relevant laws about how private health service providers handle personal information (including but not limited to patient health information).
We are committed to complying with all applicable privacy laws which govern how SDH collects, uses, discloses and stores your personal information.
This Privacy Statement sets out in brief how SDH (inpatient services) will handle your personal information.
Southport Day Hospital (SDH) is committed to protecting your privacy and developing technology that gives you the most powerful and safe online experience. This Statement of Privacy applies to our SDH Web site and governs data collection and usage. By using the SDH Web site, you consent to the data practices described in this statement.
PATIENT DATA COLLECTION
In respect of Patients, SDH will collect your personal information for the purpose of providing you with health care and for directly related purposes. For example, SDH may collect, use or disclose personal information:
- For use by a multidisciplinary treating team;
- Assessment for provision of health care services;
- To liaise with health professionals, Medicare, your health fund or other third party payer;
- In an emergency where your life is at risk and you cannot consent;
- To manage SDH facilities, including for processes relating to risk management, safety and security activities and quality assurance and accreditation activities;
- For the education of health care workers or the placement of students or trainees at SDH;
- To maintain medical records as required under our policies and by law; or
- For other purposes required or permitted by law.
- In respect of other individuals, SDH will collect your personal information in order to engage with you in your dealings with SDH and for other related purposes.
Personal information may be shared to coordinate your care.
Southport Day Hospital will usually collect your personal information directly from you, but sometimes may need to collect it from a third party. We will only do this if you have consented or where it is not reasonable or practical for us to collect this information directly from you (for example, in relation to a patient, your life is at risk and we need to provide emergency treatment).
We will not use or disclose your personal information to any other persons or organisations for any other purpose unless:
You have consented;
- For patients/clients, the use or disclosure is for a purpose directly related to providing you with health care and you would reasonably expect us to use or disclose your personal information in this way;
- For other individuals, the use or disclosure is for a purpose related to providing you with services and you would reasonably expect us to use or disclose your personal information in this way;
- We have told you that we will disclose your personal information to other organisations or persons; or
- We are permitted or required to do so by law.
- You have the right to access your personal information that we hold about you (for patients, this includes health information contained in your health record). You can also request an amendment to personal information that we hold about you should you believe that it contains inaccurate information.
SHARING OF INFORMATION
We may outsource information and data storage services (including archiving of medical records). Where we outsource our services we take reasonable steps in the circumstances to ensure that third parties, have obligations under their contracts with SDH to comply with all laws relating to the privacy (including security) and confidentiality of your personal information.
HOW SOUTHPORT DAY HOSPITAL HANDLES YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WHEN YOU VISIT OUR WEBSITE
This section of our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your personal information which is collected from our website: www.southportdayhospital.com.au
COLLECTION
When you use our website, we do not attempt to identify you as an individual user and we will not collect personal information about you unless you specifically provide this to us.
Sometimes, we may collect your personal information if you choose to provide this to us via an online form or by email, for example, if you:
- Complete your pre-admission form online
- Submit a general enquiry via our contacts page
When you use our website, we use analytics tools such as Google Analytics to record and log for statistical purposes and abuse/fraud prevention purposes the following information about your visit, such as:
- Your computer Internet Protocol address
- Your top level domain name (for example, .com,.gov, .org, .au etc)
- The date and time of your visit
- The pages and documents you access during your visit; and
- the version of web browser you are using.
- Our web-site management team use statistical data collected by Google Analytics to evaluate the effectiveness of our web-site.
Google makes available a browser “add-on” that prevents Google Analytics from collecting information about web site visits, we suggest you refer to the instructions for installation of Google Analytics Opt-out to learn more about this.
We are, however, obliged to allow law enforcement agencies and other government agencies with relevant legal authority to inspect our web server logs, if an investigation being conducted warrants such inspection.
COOKIES
A “cookie” is a small bit of data our server sends to your browser that allows our server to identify and interact more effectively with your computer. Cookies do not identify individual users, but they do identify your ISP and your browser type.
The Southport Day Hospital (SDH) website may use cookies. This means that upon closing your browser, the cookie assigned to your computer or device may remain active to enhance your use of the website when you return to the website.
Personal information such as your email address is not collected unless you provide it to us. We do not disclose domain names or aggregate information to third parties other than agents who assist us with this website and who are under obligations of confidentiality. You can configure your browser to accept or reject all cookies and to notify you when a cookie is used. We suggest that you refer to your browser instructions or help screens to learn more about these functions. However, please note that if you configure your browser so as not to receive any cookies, a certain level of functionality of the SDH website and other websites may be lost.
LINKS TO THIRD PARTY WEBSITES
We may create links to third party websites. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices employed by websites that are linked from our website.
USE AND DISCLOSURE
We will only use personal information collected via our website for the purposes for which you have given us this information.
We will not use or disclose your personal information to other organisations or anyone else unless:
- You have consented for us to use or disclose your personal information for this purpose
- You would reasonably expect or we have told you (including via this policy) that your information is usually or may be used or disclosed to other organisations or persons for a related (or for sensitive information, a directly related purpose)
- The use or disclosure is required or authorised by law
- The use or disclosure will prevent or lessen a serious and/or imminent threat to somebody’s life, health or safety or to public health or public safety; or
- the disclosure is reasonably necessary for law enforcement functions or for the protection of public revenue.
- If we receive your email address because you sent us an email message, the email will only be used or disclosed for the purpose for which you have provided and we will not add your email address to an emailing list or disclose this to anyone else unless you provide us with consent for this purpose.
DATA QUALITY
If we collect your personal information from our website, we will maintain and update your information as reasonably practical and necessary or when you advise us that your personal information has changed.
DATA SECURITY
Southport Day Hospital is committed to protecting the security of your personal information. We use technologies and processes such as access control procedures, network firewalls, encryption and physical security to protect the privacy of information. We will take all reasonable steps to prevent your information from loss, misuse or alteration.
If you choose to complete our online forms or lodge enquiries via our website, we will ensure that your contact details are stored on password protected databases.
Staff members associated with website maintenance have access to our website’s backend system. This is password protected. Our website service is also password protected.