Health and Technology: Questions Remain About Privacy, eHealth Records and Data Ownership
Monday 19 May 2014 @ 11.10 a.m. | IP & Media | Legal Research
Examples of new uses of technology to improve access to the best health care were thick on the ground at CeBIT’s recent eHealth conference. From watches and wristbands that monitor heart rates remotely, to directly connecting patients in rural areas with doctors in big city hospitals, it is clear that advances in technology have the potential to change the way healthcare works in Australia.
But along with the changes in technology come more complicated questions about data ownership and privacy. Kenneth Morgan, the special advisor to the vice chancellor of Flinders University on cyber security and resilience, told the Sydney Morning Herald that ownership of the data created through these technologies is an issue that must be dealt with. Although under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), patients “control” their data and can look at their records, they may not necessarily own it, which could have far-reaching consequences –
“There are commercial interests, such as drug companies, alternative medicine companies, insurance companies, who are interested in the patient’s lifestyle and what drugs they are taking… In some countries, there have been security breaks of health records and people have been blackmailed”.
According to The Australian, ‘security and privacy concerns’ of doctors are partly to blame for the problems that Australia has had rolling out its e-Health scheme. The Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records Act 2012 (Cth) was introduced to establish a national electronic heath record system by the former Labor government, and over $1 billion has been invested in it to date. While patients have been steadily signing up to the program, according to ZDNet,
“the number of documents being created and used in the system is relatively low, with only a few hundred healthcare professionals putting up the “shared health summary” that lists a patient’s details, and around 5000 documents uploaded in total”.
The slow uptake was one of the reasons that Health Minister Peter Dutton commissioned a review of the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) system in November last year, saying although the government supports the idea in principle, "it must be fit for purpose and cost effective". Although the Government had no specific policy on continuing to fund the scheme coming up to the election, the PCEHR has received funding in the budget, albeit only for the next financial year. However, while the review was apparently completed in December, attempts by media outlets, including The Australian, to obtain the report under FOI laws have been unsuccessful. It is not clear how the Government intends to respond to the findings in the review and if they will eventually release it publicly.
As well as privacy concerns, the PCHER system is also criticised as being difficult and complex to use. Australian Medical Association president Dr Steve Hambleton told the ABC that:
“The interface between the GP software and the PCEHR is difficult. The time spent on uploading what is a shared health summary needs to be done line by line with the patient, and that is time consuming. The efficiency is not there.”
The CSIRO’s Sarah Dods also raised cultural difficulties as an issue in her speech at CeBIT, which looked at at how health systems will change with new technologies:
“Health professionals are very conservative about change, whereas things move faster in the digital world. Doing things differently means things can go wrong [and]… the consequences of risk in the health space can kill people...”
Changes in medical technology and infrastructure undoubtedly have the power to change health care for the better. But law and policy also has a critical role to play, to ensure that people feel confident entrusting their personal information to such systems and that any changes can be successfully and safely introduced into a system that, after all, is primarily focussed on saving lives.
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