In May 2015, the Commonwealth Department of Health published a legislation discussion paper – “Electronic Health records and Healthcare Identifiers”.

The Australian Government is proposing changes to the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR), now renamed “My Health Record” to increase the number of individuals and healthcare providers participating in the PCEHR system, increase the clinical utility and usability of the PCEHR system to support meaningful use by healthcare providers, and improve the overall operation of the PCEHR system and Healthcare Identifiers (HI) Service, and eHealth more generally.

The primary change being considered is the move to change to an “opt-out” basis. From 2016, trials of different participation arrangements for individuals will be undertaken. An opt-out model of participation will be included as part of these trials. If the opt-out model is adopted, every Australian entitled to Medicare will have an electronic health record unless they opt out.

The system will still offer the same level of personal control over the information in the PCEHR and will continue to give information the same level of privacy and security protection.

Proposed changes to eHealth governance arrangements aim to streamline the existing mechanisms across eHealth development and implementation, and improve key stakeholder involvement with the establishment of the Australian Commission for eHealth.

Other proposed changes would:

• clarify the data breach notification requirements to remove ambiguities of what constitutes a data breach and when parties need to provide notification;
• clarify how healthcare providers and other entities can handle healthcare identifiers and other information, ensuring information can be obtained and used as is required to support safe and effective information sharing and recording; and
• provide alignment with Government measures to standardise regulatory powers and better reflect the rights of people with disabilities.

The Government is also considering whether changes to the PCEHR’s system’s penalty framework are necessary.

This article was included in the recent Holman Webb Health Law Bulletin.  To read other articles in the September edition of the bulletin, please click here.