Health Legislation Amendment (eHealth) Act 2015 (157 of 2015)

Schedule 1   Healthcare identifiers and health records

Part 1   Amendments

Privacy Act 1988

109   After section 6F

Insert:

6FA Meaning of health information

The following information is health information :

(a) information or an opinion about:

(i) the health, including an illness, disability or injury, (at any time) of an individual; or

(ii) an individual's expressed wishes about the future provision of health services to the individual; or

(iii) a health service provided, or to be provided, to an individual;

that is also personal information;

(b) other personal information collected to provide, or in providing, a health service to an individual;

(c) other personal information collected in connection with the donation, or intended donation, by an individual of his or her body parts, organs or body substances;

(d) genetic information about an individual in a form that is, or could be, predictive of the health of the individual or a genetic relative of the individual.

6FB Meaning of health service

(1) An activity performed in relation to an individual is a health service if the activity is intended or claimed (expressly or otherwise) by the individual or the person performing it:

(a) to assess, maintain or improve the individual's health; or

(b) where the individual's health cannot be maintained or improved - to manage the individual's health; or

(c) to diagnose the individual's illness, disability or injury; or

(d) to treat the individual's illness, disability or injury or suspected illness, disability or injury; or

(e) to record the individual's health for the purposes of assessing, maintaining, improving or managing the individual's health.

(2) The dispensing on prescription of a drug or medicinal preparation by a pharmacist is a health service .

(3) To avoid doubt:

(a) a reference in this section to an individual's health includes the individual's physical or psychological health; and

(b) an activity mentioned in subsection (1) or (2) that takes place in the course of providing aged care, palliative care or care for a person with a disability is a health service .

(4) The regulations may prescribe an activity that, despite subsections (1) and (2) is not to be treated as a health service for the purposes of this Act.