Protecting patient privacy is core to everything we do here at Bay Radiology.

 

Updated Privacy Act 2020

The updated Privacy Act came into force on 1 December 2020. The Act has strengthened the power of the privacy commissioner and the act now includes mandatory reporting for privacy breaches which may cause serious harm.

We continue to make our patients privacy a priority, while ensuring that imaging information is easily accessible to authorised people and protected by the auditing of our account holders regularly.

 

Bay Radiology Privacy Statement

Please find below a summarised version of our Patient Privacy Statement, including frequently asked questions. If you would like to read or download the full statement, please click here. 

 

Privacy Overview

Bay Radiology collects information about patients we provide services to so that we can provide a high-quality medical imaging service. The information we collect provides valuable insight into a patient’s health status and allows Bay Radiology staff to provide the best possible treatment or diagnosis from the imaging performed.

 

Protecting your health information

  • Bay Radiology only allows authorised people to access its information systems, which hold all the images, radiologists’ reports and other sensitive data related to patients.
  • In order to become authorised, referrers and other medical professionals have to apply to Bay Radiology and must sign and comply with our Privacy and Security Agreement, and agree to our auditing their access to patient records. They are only allowed to look at patient information when it is needed for their own provision of health services to that patient.
  • All Bay Radiology staff are required to sign a confidentiality agreement and comply with Bay Radiology's Confidentiality Policy and Privacy Policy. Our health professionals must also comply with their professional and ethical obligations of confidentiality.

Privacy Policy FAQs

The information Bay Radiology might collect about you may include your:

  • Name;
  • Date of birth;
  • Gender;
  • Address (postal and email);
  • Telephone numbers;
  • NHI, health fund and health insurance cover details;
  • Medical history, test results and other health information including, where relevant to the examination, your family or social history;
  • ACC number and relevant information; Emergency contact details;
  • Any other information you provide.

  • People who are eligible to apply for access to our information systems include: Bay Radiology staff; referrers of patients to Bay Radiology; other medical practitioners including specialists; and other health professionals including physios, chiropractors, podiatrists, nurses and dentists. Persons who are authorised to access our information systems are provided with a secure web based password-protection portal to access patient images and reports.
  • Your health information, such as radiology images and reports, may be available to your referring health professional. With your express consent, or at the request of, or with the express consent of, a person lawfully acting on your behalf (such as a parent acting for a child) we may provide relevant information about you to your representative, or another person or health provider.

  • Patients are able to “opt out” of this system on a per examination basis, such that only Bay Radiology staff will be able to view the data about that examination. It should be appreciated however, that restricting access in this way may have unintended and detrimental consequences should access to images and reports be needed in an emergency, or outside normal hours. To restore standard access will require the services of IT staff who may not always be available at those times.
  • If you are a patient and you either want us to restrict access to your medical information, or you want an audit done of who has looked at your records, please inform our staff or contact us via our contact page.