If a researcher, health and medical research institute, pharmaceutical, medical device and/or biotechnology company wishes to become involved in clinical trials and/or health and medical research in Australia, they should be aware of the legislative, regulatory and policy framework, noting that not all health and medical research is a clinical trial.

Big data is a term used to describe the exponential growth and availability of data, both structured and unstructured (1). In terms of health care, big data represents all of the data which has been collected on relevant multiple databases. Click here to read more.

Next year is likely to see some significant steps forward for the national ehealth system following the release of the report of the review of the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) by the Commonwealth Minister for Health in May. (1) The  review undertaken over 6 weeks in late 2013, and headed by Richard Royle, Executive Director of UnitingCare Health (Qld), made 38 recommendations.

Welcome to the August 2014 edition of the Holman Webb Health Law Bulletin.

Australia has been at the forefront in various areas of innovation in health and medical research. This edition of the Bulletin focuses on innovation in the health, aged care and life science sector with articles on recent developments concerning health records, big data and privacy.

Two recent cases before the Australian Privacy Commissioner (Commissioner) serve as a reminder to organisations of the importance of keeping personal information of clients secure and adequately disposing of information that is no longer in use.

This year's AICLA-ANZIIF Claims Convention program examined the changing nature of the insurance claims business.  The conference covered a variety of issues including business development, offshoring, cyber security, fraud, professional privilege and how social media will change the claims sector.

The Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (PPSA) required a review of the operations of the Act to be undertaken within 3 years of its implementation.  The review recognised that there were various aspects of the legislation that would need time to work their way into the corporate consciousness of Australian businesses and an assessment of industry understanding of the PPSA was an appropriate mechanism to ensure compliance and ongoing protection.

Disclosure documents need to be updated annually and businesses must provide their current information by the end of October 2013. While many franchisors tend to wait until the last minute to finalise the update, in 2013, there are a few issues to be aware of - which could mean you start this job earlier than usual.

The High Court’s recent decision in Sidhu v Van Dyke means that if you have relied on a promise and the other party has resiled from that promise to your detriment, you will need to prove that you relied on that promise and suffered a loss as a result.

In the United States, the issue of the competition between ‘bricks and mortar’ retail franchises and the online channel conducted by the franchisor has taken front place as the new form of “encroachment” claim made by franchisees in recent years.  In Australia our mandatory franchise disclosure document under the Franchising Code of Conduct requires prior disclosure to a franchisee of information relating to the franchise “territory”, but it refers to a physical geographic territory only and does not address encroachment through alternative channels of distribution, such as e-commerce.  This has been remedied with the proposed new form of disclosure document due for commencement from 1 January 2015.  (Note the new form is not law yet).