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

Schedule 1   Healthcare identifiers and health records

Part 1   Amendments

Healthcare Identifiers Act 2010

3   After section 3

Insert:

3A Simplified outline of this Act

Under this Act, healthcare identifiers are assigned to healthcare recipients, individual healthcare providers and healthcare provider organisations.

There are strict rules on:

(a) the verification of a person's identity before a healthcare identifier is assigned; and

(b) the purposes for which a healthcare identifier can be collected, used and disclosed; and

(c) the purposes for which the identifying information of a healthcare recipient, a healthcare provider or a healthcare provider organisation can be collected, used and disclosed.

This Act facilitates the use of the healthcare identifier for the purposes of communicating and managing health information about a healthcare recipient (including through the My Health Record system).

This Act also facilitates:

(a) the creation of a Healthcare Provider Directory, to allow healthcare providers to check the professional and business details of healthcare providers; and

(b) the use of authenticated electronic communications by healthcare providers.