Question

Policy advocacy statement for My Health Record.

Answer 1

My Health Record is an online summary of an
individual’s key health information that can be shared securely between an individual and the healthcare providers involved in their care.
Every year, every individual with a Medicare or Department of Veterans’ Affairs card will get a My Health Record unless they tell us they don’t want one.
For the patients, it means their important health
information such as medical conditions, medicines, allergies and test results are kept together securely in one place.
All patients will benefit from having a digital record accessible by their treating General Practitioner. In particular, individuals with complex health conditions who see several healthcare providers, or in situations where
you are not the patient’s regular GP.
The My Health Record system provides General
Practitioners with a range of benefits:
avoiding adverse drug events
enhancing patients self-management
improvements in patient outcomes
reducing the time it takes to gather patient
information
improving access to patient Advance Care
Directives.
avoiding the duplication of services

My Health Record is designed to provide you with better access to healthcare information to support you in caring for your patients.
Healthcare information in your patient’s
My Health Record can assist with clinical
decision making:
Validating clinical information – you can check
the patient’s medical diagnoses, medicines,
allergies and adverse drug reactions, as well as
their immunisation history.
New patient visit – when treating a patient for the first time, get an overview of their health through their shared health summary, discharge summaries and medicines information.
Timely access to patient information – avoid delays which may occur in receipt of discharge summaries and other key patient information by viewing it in their My Health Record.
Avoid unnecessary investigations – check the
patient’s My Health Record before requesting
pathology or diagnostic imaging tests as it may
contain recent reports you can reference.
Verify the patient’s immunisation status – check the patient’s shared health summary and/or their Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) information.
Share information with other healthcare providers
– upload a shared health summary with the
patient’s medical diagnoses, medicines, allergies
and adverse drug reactions and immunisation
history, or an event summary with information about a significant clinical event.