Privacy Policy

We are committed to the privacy of your personal information

Tomorrow Healthcare is committed to respecting and maintaining the privacy of your personal information. We are committed to ensuring that our patients and clients understand how we treat personal information and the laws which apply to this process. We are aware of the sensitive nature of healthcare information and evolving areas of privacy best practice, and strive to operate not only in a way which complies with the law but one which meets the evolving expectations of our patients, frontline healthcare staff and care providers.

We will abide by all relevant privacy laws

We are required to treat your electronic and paper-based personal information in accordance with all applicable laws which govern privacy, including the Australian Privacy Principles found in Commonwealth legislation (click here for more information) and state laws in the jurisdictions in which we operate. We are required to keep this information secure to prevent against unauthorised access, and have a zero tolerance approach to any misuse of personal information.

The personal information we collect to deliver healthcare services and ensure our operations

We may collect personal information from time to time for the purposes of providing clinical care and improving the quality of life of our patients, and enabling us to deliver health services.

This personal information may include personal details such as your name, date of birth, contact details, healthcare identifiers, Medicare details, Department of Veterans Affairs details, health fund details, medical history, legal documents relating to medical decision-making and care preferences, health benefits eligibility and personal preferences (e.g, spiritual, activities, culinary, communications channels preferred).

We may collect this information when patients are referred to our services, when we start delivering healthcare services to patients, during the course of providing healthcare services to patients, during any communications with us, and from third-party sources where considered clinically appropriate (such as family members, other healthcare providers, and funding providers such as Medicare, the Department of Veterans Affairs and health funds).

As well as using personal information to deliver healthcare services, we may also collect, use, hold or share your personal information for business activities related to healthcare delivery, including facilitating payments, audits, accreditation, staff training, informing current or prospective patients about products of services that we offer (which you may opt out of) and other business processes.

Consenting to our use of your personal information

We will seek consent to handle your personal information as outlined in our privacy policy, such that our clinical staff (i.e., doctors and allied health team) and, where appropriate, administrative personnel, can ensure we are supported in helping to deliver the best healthcare possible to our patients. If we are ever faced with a situation where we wish to use your personal information for any purposes other than those which we have outlined here, we will seek your informed consent to do so and respect your right to decide whether this is suitable for you.

How we treat your medical records

Our healthcare professionals are committed to ensuring that your medical records exist in a form where they can support the delivery of excellent clinical care and health outcomes. This includes the collation of any appropriate past medical history, the creation and maintenance of a clinically suitable health summary, and the production of clinical notes which support the clinical care we deliver and any clinical handovers which may be required.

Our healthcare professionals are committed to ensuring that our patients’ medical records are, to the extent which it is practicable, complete, accurate, up to date, available to care providers when needed to facilitate patient care, and support patient choice in healthcare provider. We are consumer-focused, respect patient choice in healthcare service delivery, and will always strive to produce and treat medical records in accordance with any wishes expressed to us by our patients, so please let us know if you ever have specific preferences or special circumstances which may change the way you would like us to treat your medical records.

We are committed to delivering the best health services and health outcomes possible for our patients and the wider community. From time to time, we may use health information to review the services we provide, support the delivery of better healthcare services to the community, and for medical research. We are committed to de-identifying patient information where it is reasonable to do so, or otherwise disclosing the way your personal information for such purposes to you and seeking any additional consent where it is needed.

Circumstances in which your personal information may be disclosed

We may disclose your personal information to:

Any third party to whom you request or consent to such information being provided to;
Any authorised representative (such as a legal guardian or Medical Treatment Decision Maker) to whom the legal power to collect such information is considered to be vested (for example, if you do not have legal capacity to make a decision);
A treating doctor or healthcare professional or health service who is or may reasonably be involved in your care (for example, your specialist, a hospital, a residential aged care facility, a GP whose care to whom you have requested to be transferred);
Medicare, the Department of Veterans Affairs or other health insurance agencies to facilitate your rebates or payment for the services we provide;
Anybody to whom the law requires us to disclose the information - in such circumstances, where legally permitted to do so and where not clinically inappropriate, we will inform you of this; examples of such circumstances are where using or disclosing the information may lessen or prevent a serious and imminent threat to a person's life, health or safety;
Any contractors or employees who are required to access the information to assist us in delivering healthcare services or other relevant services to you (for example, the clinical software provider, our clinical auditing team);
Our medical indemnity insurers, where the information is required to be disclosed in order for us to receive advice or for medicolegal purposes;
Anybody who may be included in the transfer of some or all of our assets or business.

During any such disclosures, we will approach the disclosure with our patients’ health outcomes and privacy as the key guiding principles, and as such will seek to only disclose the information necessary to meet these requirements.

It is a requirement of Tomorrow Healthcare that any third party organisation to whom your personal information is provided is reasonably equipped to appropriately handle such information and will only use this information for the purposes for which it is supplied, which would ordinarily be directly or indirectly related to healthcare service provision.

We will not ordinarily send any of your personal information overseas, unless we inform you and you consent to this occurring, or unless we have a reasonable basis to be confident that your information will be treated in a way that is consistent with Australian privacy laws and good privacy practice, and we consider that doing so is likely to improve the quality of the services we can offer and the health outcomes we can deliver.

Accessing your health information

We believe that you have a fundamental right to access your personal health information, and are committed to facilitating this. We think that this is fundamental to empowering you over your own health goals and facilitating consumer choice of healthcare providers.

You can request access to any medical information that we keep about you at any time, and you can ask our healthcare service providers for information about your healthcare services.

We will provide you with any personal health information you request within a reasonable time frame, subject to any redactions which are considered clinically or legally appropriate where there may be a risk of physical or mental harm to you or any other person stemming from the disclosure of your health information, or whether otherwise required by law.

We would not ordinarily levy a fee for the transfer of your medical information as we consider this to act as a barrier to consumer choice and health service delivery, but there are circumstances (such as where significant resources are involved) where we may seek a contribution to the associated costs we incur.

Any questions or concerns about the privacy of your personal information?

Should you ever have any questions, concerns or other feedback about how we collect, store or use personal information or about our privacy policy, please do not hesitate to contact us.

If you wish to make a complaint or referral about any matters relating to our handling of personal information, you may also do so by contacting the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) here.