Confidentiality of Personal Health Information
This tutorial is recommended for all nurses as it explains what the expected standard is in maintaing confidentiality and what ethical and legal duties nurses and midwives have when collecting, using, storing or disclosing personal health information. It also describes the most commonly invoked legal exceptions to the rules of non-disclosure.
3 CPD hours
3 CNA points
A great deal of the information that nurses and midwives deal with is personal or personal health information. In Australia, the collection, use, storage and disclosure of personal information is regulated by various acts of parliament. However, the standard required of people who collect, use, store and disclose personal health information is higher than the standard applied to other personal information. This tutorial is recommended for all nurses as it explains what the expected standard is and what ethical and legal duties nurses and midwives have when collecting, using, storing or disclosing personal health information. It also describes the most commonly invoked legal exceptions to the rules of non-disclosure.
Jolan Yik Paal BCom, LLB (Australian National University)
Jolan is a litigation solicitor with extensive experience in acting for plaintiffs in medical negligence matters, including hypoxic births and failure-to-diagnose cases. She has represented professional indemnity insurers in medical negligence matters and health professionals in disciplinary matters. Jolan currently works as in-house counsel for a group of private hospitals in England.
Anita Whitelum RN, LLB; Grad Dip LP; Grad Dip OH&S
Anita is a registered nurse and lawyer. As a registered nurse, Anita worked extensively in the area of palliative care. As a solicitor, Anita has experience in working in the areas of medical negligence and risk minimisation and compliance in health care.
- Understand the duty to protect the personal information of patients/clients.
- Understand the ethical duty to maintain confidential information.
- Know the privacy principles that apply to the collection, use, storage and disclosure of personal health information.
- Understand the legal principle of reasonable expectation as it applies to personal health information.
- Know when and where exceptions to the duty to maintain confidential information apply.
- Be aware of practical ways to reduce the risk of breaching their duty not to disclose confidential information.