Child Development Clinic Privacy Policy

The Child Development Clinic is committed to best practice in relation to the management of information we collect. This practice has developed a policy to protect patient privacy in compliance with the Privacy Act 1988 (‘the Privacy Act’), the privacy Amendment Act 2012 and AMA guidelines. 
 
This privacy statement explains how we collect, use and disclose information of the young person and their families, how you may access that information and how you may seek the correction of any information. It also explains how to address any concerns you have about information held by Child Development Clinic. 

What kinds of personal information do we collect?
The type of information we may collect and hold about you and your child includes demographic details, Medicare number, questionnaires and reports that you have provided and information received from other professionals. Clinical information will be collected as part of the medical record during clinic visits including clinical history, assessment and tests results.
 
How do we collect and hold personal information?
We will generally collect personal information from you directly when you provide your details to us. This might be via a face to face discussion, telephone conversation, registration form or online form, from a person responsible for you or from third parties where the Privacy Act or other law allows it - this may include, but is not limited to other members of your treating team, diagnostic centres, specialists, hospitals and schools.

Why do we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information?
In general, we collect, hold, and disclose your personal information to provide health services to you and your child, to communicate with you in relation to the health service being provided to you and your child, to comply with our legal obligations, including, but not limited to, mandatory notification of communicable diseases or mandatory reporting under applicable child protection legislation and to help us manage our accounts and administrative services. Where transcription services are used, it is de-identified. Information is stored at least until the young person is 25 years of age.
 
How can you access and correct your personal information?
You have a right to seek access to, and correction of the personal information which we hold about you.
For details on how to access and correct you or your child’s health record, please contact our practice as noted below under ‘Contact Details’.  We will normally respond to your request within 10 business days.
 
How do we hold your personal information?
Our staff are trained and required to respect and protect your privacy and do not access or obtain any information on any clients with whom they are not involved with the care of or have a professional responsibility to.  The only exception to this is if used for staff training or for professional advice amongst colleagues to optimise clinical care. We take reasonable steps to protect information held from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. This includes holding your information on an encrypted database within a secure Australian cloud storage DataCentre (PCI Ver3, ISO 27001 and ISOh14001 accredited) with access password protected and restricted on a “need to know” basis. We have a paperless policy with secure destruction of provided paper copies.

Privacy related questions and complaints
If you have any questions about privacy-related issues or wish to complain about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles or the handling of your personal information by us, you may lodge your complaint in writing. See our contact details below.  We will normally respond to your request within 30 days. If you are dissatisfied with our response, you may refer the matter to the OAIC, 1300 363 992.
 
Updates to this Policy
This Policy will be reviewed from time to time to take account of new laws and technology, changes to our operations and other necessary developments. Updates will be publicised on the practice's website.
 
Contact details for privacy related issues
Child Development Clinic
Level 3, 66 Clarence Street
Sydney NSW 2000
T: 02 8379 8222
F: 02 8379 8223
E: [email protected]