Personal health information workshop topic

How access to personal health information may be managed in future will be one of the topics at a community workshop looking at the future of patient records to be held in Dunedin next week.

The workshop, organised by the National Health IT board and the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand, is one of several being held around the country to discuss shared care patient records.

The board will inform participants of the need for shared care electronic records, how this could be achieved in the next four years and how it could improve health outcomes and then seeking their views.

Board director Graeme Osborne said one of the issues with the existing system was that the IT systems did not talk to each other.

Also, since many doctors moved around - some working in the community and hospital environments - it would be useful to have standardised clinical work stations so that clinicians did not have to think "which system am I in?".

If patient information was to be shared, patients would want to know what information was involved and who would be looking at it.

People might be concerned about other agencies having access to information.

"We are very clear that what we are trying to do is create a more effective health system, not trying to solve problems for anybody else."

It might be, however, that in some contexts people would be happy to share their information with certain agencies.

Mr Osborne said one of the biggest things he was learning in his role was that "you can't think of New Zealanders as a homogenous group".

He agreed people would need to be confident that highly personal information was held securely.

Privacy commissioner Marie Shroff has drawn attention to the risks of people having direct access to their own health information by a computer interface accessible on the internet.

Among her concerns were security issues including identity theft, the effect of viruses and "snooping family members".

She has also pointed out the risks of extending national or regional health information collections into social indicators and the unanticipated secondary use of collected data by researchers or others.

Such risks, if not addressed, could threaten public confidence in the health sector and ultimately, public health, she said in her submission on the board's draft plan.

Mr Osborne said at the 3pm-7pm community workshop on July 30 at the Otago Museum, the first two and a-half hours would be in a closed session to ensure people would feel comfortable sharing their experiences and views of the health service.

The last hour would be a feedback session, open to health professionals and the media.

A wide variety of groups had been invited, but anyone who had not been included and wanted to attend could make contact on enquiries@ithealthboard.health.nz