Every medical record belonging to our patients is a confidential document. It is the policy of UniSA Health – Medical Clinic to maintain the security of personal health information at all times and to ensure that individual patient information is only available to authorised members of staff.

From time to time our practice undergoes quality control audits (for accreditation) which include a review of medical records. These reviews are carried out by another qualified doctor (not from this practice), on a small number of randomly selected medical records. If you do not want your notes to be reviewed in this way, please let our receptionist know and we will ensure your notes are not included in any quality control audit.

You can view our full privacy policy, which covers:

• Use or disclosure of personal information
• Security of information collected
• Storage, accessing or transferring your records
• How to obtain more information

This general practice collects information from you for the primary purpose of providing quality health care. We require you to provide us with your personal details and a full medical history so that we may properly assess, diagnose and treat illnesses and medical conditions, ensuring we are proactive in your health care. To enable ongoing care, and in keeping with the Privacy Act 1988 and Australian Privacy Principles, we wish to provide you with sufficient information on how your personal information may be used or disclosed and record your consent or restrictions to this consent.

Your personal information will only be used for the purposes for which it was collected or as otherwise permitted by law, and we respect your right to determine how your information is used or disclosed.

The information we collect may be collected by a number of different methods and examples may include: medical test results, notes from consultations, Medicare details, data collected from observations and conversations with you, and details obtained from other health care providers (e.g. specialist correspondence).

When providing us with personal information, you (as a patient/parent/guardian) are consenting to the collection of your personal information, and that it may be used or disclosed by the practice for the following purposes:

• Administrative purposes in the operation of our general practice.
• Billing purposes, including compliance with Medicare requirements.
• Follow-up reminder/recall notices for treatment and preventative healthcare, frequently issued by SMS.
• Disclosure to others involved in your health care, including treating doctors and specialists outside this medical practice. This may occur through referral to other doctors, or for medical tests and in the reports or results returned to us following the referrals.
• Accreditation and quality assurance activities to improve individual and community health care and practice management.
• For legal related disclosure as required by a court of law.
• For the purposes of research only where de-identified information is used.
• To allow medical students and staff to participate in medical training/teaching using only de-identified information.
• To comply with any legislative or regulatory requirements, e.g. notifiable diseases.
• For use when seeking treatment by other doctors in this practice.

At all times we are required to ensure your details are treated with the utmost confidentiality. Your records are very important and we will take all steps necessary to ensure they remain confidential.

In a medical emergency please call 000. If your matter is not urgent and you require assistance outside of our clinic operating hours please call 13SICK on 13 74 25 or visit their website at 13sick.com.au

UniSA Health welcomes feedback from patients. Customer feedback forms are available either at reception, or can be downloaded here. Forms can be placed in the patient feedback box located at reception, or emailed to the Practice Manager at pm@unisamedical.com.au

From time to time the practice invites patients to complete a questionnaire on their views of the practice an how it could be improved. We use an independence provider to review and report on feedback to ensure confidentiality. Feedback is also compared with other Practices and helps us consider improvements to our services and facilities.

Where feedback is a complaint with any aspect of the service we will investigate the matter and confirm the outcome of the investigation in writing.
While we believe it is best to handle feedback locally, if you wish to address it through external parties you may contact the following agency:

Health and Community Services Complaints Commissioner
Level 4, East Wing, 50 Grenfell Street, Adelaide, SA 5000
PO BOX 199, Rundle Mall SA 5000
Complaints: 8228 8666 Freecall 1800232 007
Hours: 10.00am – 4.00pm Monday to Thursday