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Privacy Policy

1.  Overview and purpose

Horizon Surgical Eye Centre respects your rights to privacy and takes our privacy obligations seriously. We comply with the Australian Privacy Principles, found under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) and Information Privacy Act 2009 (QLD)

When you first register as a patient, our new patient registration form requests your consent so that we can collect, use, hold and share your personal information in order to provide you with high quality healthcare and to allow us to manage our practice.  If we intend to use your personal information for any other purpose, we will seek your consent first.

This privacy policy explains:

  • how we manage your personal information (including your health information), including the collection, use, disclosure, quality and security of your personal information.
  • the kinds of information we collect and how that information is held;
  • the purposes for which we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information;
  • how you can access your personal information and how you can request to correct such information; and
  • how you can complain about a breach of your privacy and how we will handle your complaint.

If you have any queries, concerns or feedback regarding our Privacy Policy, please do not hesitate to contact us:

  • Privacy Officer is the Practice Manager
  • Phone: 07 5655 3332
  • Email: info@horizonsurgicaleyecentre.com.au
  • Post: Suite 8C Level 8, Fred McKay House, John Flynn Private Hospital, 42 Inland Drive Tugun, QLD 4225

In this Privacy Policy, we use the terms:

“Personal information” as defined in the Privacy Act. This means:

“information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable:

  • whether the information or opinion is true or not; and
  • whether the information or opinion is recorded in a material form or not“;

“Health information” as defined in the Privacy Act. This is a subset of “personal information” and means information or an opinion about:

  • the health or a disability (at any time) of an individual;
  • an individual’s expressed wishes about the future provision of health services to him or her; or
  • a health service provided or to be provided to an individual.

Personal information also includes “sensitive information” which is information such as your race, religion, political opinions, sexual preferences and/or “health information”. Information which is “sensitive information” attracts a higher privacy standard under the Privacy Act and is subject to additional mechanisms for your protection.

“We”, “Us”, “Our”, shall mean:

  • Horizon Surgical Eye Centre
  • Employed, contracted and independent medical and healthcare practitioners who practice from our rooms.

 

2. Collection of personal information

Horizon Surgical Eye Centre collects information which is necessary to provide you with healthcare services and to appropriately manage and conduct our business.  This includes collecting personal information and such as your name and contact details, medical history, family history, past and current treatments, lifestyle factors and any other information which is necessary to assist us in providing you appropriate care. We will also collect your Medicare number and health fund details (where applicable).

You have the right to deal with us anonymously or under a pseudonym unless it is impracticable for us to do so or unless we are required or authorised by law to only deal with identified individuals. It is important to be aware that if you provide incomplete or inaccurate information or withhold information we may not be able to provide you with healthcare services.

Horizon Surgical Eye Centre will usually collect your personal information directly from you, including from patient consent forms, medical records and consultations with you, or from another health service provider. Sometimes we need to collect information about you from third parties, such as relatives and friends and private health insurers.

We will only collect information from third parties where:

  • you have consented to such collection; or
  • such collection is necessary to enable us to provide you with appropriate healthcare services (such as emergency medical treatment or where your health is at risk);
  • such collection is reasonably necessary to enable us to appropriately manage and conduct our business; or
  • it is legally permissible for us to do.

Horizon Surgical Eye Centre has CCTV systems operating at our premises for the purposes of maintaining safety and security for our patients, visitors, staff and other attendees. Our CCTV system may collect and store personal information and the use of our CCTV will be in accordance with the Privacy Act.

 

3. How we use your personal information

Horizon Surgical Eye Centre only uses your personal information to provide you with healthcare services, to facilitate the provision of healthcare services by other providers, or to enable us to appropriately manage and conduct our business, unless:

  • there is a secondary purpose which directly relates to the primary purpose, and you would reasonably expect, or Horizon Surgical Eye Centre has informed you, that your information will be used for that secondary purpose, or you have given your consent for your personal information to be used for a secondary purpose;
  • the disclosure of your information is necessary for the enforcement of criminal law or a law imposing a penalty or sanction, or for the protection of public revenue;
  • the disclosure of your information will prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to somebody’s life or health; or,
  • Horizon Surgical Eye Centre is required or authorised by law to disclose your information for another purpose.

For example, Horizon Surgical Eye Centre uses your personal information:

  • to provide healthcare services to you;
  • to appropriately manage our practice, such as conducting audits and undertaking accreditation processes, manage billings and training staff;
  • effectively communicate with third parties, including private health insurers, Medicare Australia and other government departments; and

 

4. Disclosing your personal information

Horizon Surgical Eye Centre may disclose your personal information to our employees, contractors and service providers in order for us to provide healthcare services to you and to allow us to manage our business. We will also disclose your personal information to healthcare professionals directly involved in your treatment. Where your medical records are required in the case of a medical emergency, we will provide these to the relevant medical professional without waiting for your consent, where we believe this is in your interests.

Your personal information may also be provided to third parties if we are legally obliged to do so by a court subpoena, statutory authority, search warrant, coronial summons or to defend a legal action.

We may provide your personal information to third parties involved in your care, such as:

  • your parents, children, relatives and close friends, guardians or a person exercising a power of attorney or enduring power of attorney. Please advise us if it is your wish no third party as stated is to have access to your personal information;
  • government departments and agencies, such as Defence or Department of Veterans Affairs, or departments responsible for health, aged care and disability where we are required to do so;
  • private health insurers and Medicare Australia; and
  • anyone authorised by you to receive your personal information.

Horizon Surgical Eye Centre engages the following third party service providers who assist us in delivering our services to you:

  • Envisage Technology
  • On the Net
  • Best Practice Software Pty Ltd

Should we undertake and participate in research studies. We will always request your written permission to be involved in such research before we release any personal information to third party researchers.

 

5. Overseas recipients

Horizon Surgical Eye Centre does engage with overseas entities where your personal information will be transferred, stored and disclosed. We have taken reasonable steps to ensure these entities comply with the Australian Privacy Principles. These entities include:

  • Dropbox (United States of America, United Kingdom, Japan, European Union, Australia
  • Microsoft One Drive (World-wide)

 

6. Data storage, quality and security

We strive to maintain the reliability, accuracy, completeness and currency of the personal information we hold and to protect its privacy and security. All personal information, whether stored as a hard copy or in electronic form is protected from unauthorised access, misuse, interference, loss, modification or disclosure. Some of the steps we take to ensure your personal information is secure include:

  • we maintain physical security over our paper and electronic data and premises;
  • our staff are trained on privacy and we have detailed internal processes and systems to protect your privacy;
  • our IT security includes virus controls, firewalls, encryption, user identifiers and passwords to control access to computer systems where your information is stored and other IT security measures;
  • we have a clean desk policy and any physical records are stored in a locked clinic; and
  • we use an Australian hosted data centre to store and back-up our data. This is managed by professional IT consultants and we have written agreements with them which includes requirements for backup, security and that they abide by the Australian Privacy Principles.

Our website and email is linked to the internet. No data transfer over the internet is 100% secure.  Accordingly, any information which you transmit to us online or via email is transmitted at your own risk.

 

7. Destroying your personal information

Subject to applicable laws, Horizon Surgical Eye Centre may destroy records containing personal information when the record is no longer required by Horizon Surgical Eye Centre.

It is likely your medical records held by us contain sensitive information. We are required to abide by relevant legislation in the retention and disposal of your medical records.

Hardcopy of patient information if required is stored in our locked clinic and disposed of using a secure shredding and disposal service. Where hardcopy information cannot be shredded it will be de-identified then disposed of. Hardcopy information is usually only created for a particular episode of care then disposed of as the practice has an electronic information/records systems for the ongoing retention of medical records.

 Electronic records are retained on an Australian data Centre with the help of professional IT services company.

 

8. Accessing and amending your personal information

We encourage you to contact us if you have a query regarding your personal information. You may request an amendment to your personal information if you consider that it contains inaccurate, incorrect or incomplete information.

You have a right to request access to any information we hold about you. If you make a request to access personal information that you are entitled to access, we will provide you suitable means of accessing it. We will not charge you for making the request. In circumstances where you request we provide a copy of your personal information to you, we may charge you a fee to cover our reasonable costs for complying with the request for access.

There may be instances where we cannot grant you access to some of the information we hold. For example, we may need to refuse access if granting access would interfere with the privacy of others.  If that is the case, we will provide you with a written explanation of those reasons.

You can contact us about any privacy issues as follows:

The Practice Manager is the Privacy Officer

Ph: 07 5655 3332

Email: info@horizonsurgicaleyecentre.com.au

Post: Suite 8C Level 8, Fred McKay House, John Flynn Private Hospital, 42 Inland Drive Tugun, QLD 4225

 

9. Complaints

If you have a complaint about how we have dealt with your personal information or believe we have breached your privacy, please contact us on the details below so that we may investigate it. We will deal with your complaint fairly and confidentially.  On receipt of your complaint we will contact you within 15 business days to confirm what investigation action will occur. We will then communicate the outcome to you in writing and invite a response to our conclusion about the complaint. If we receive a response from you, we will also assess it and advise if we have changed our view.

 

10. Review and change to Privacy Policy

We may alter this Privacy Policy following any legislative change or upon a review of our information handling processes.

The current version of our updated Privacy Policy is available from:

  • Reception in Person
  • By contacting Horizon Surgical Eye Centre on 07 5655 3332