My Health Record webinar series

To help people make an informed decision about My Health Record and whether to opt-out, we have held series of 6 webinars during the opt-out period. The webinars aim is to provide balanced, independent, factual and authoritative information about My Health Record and the opt-out process, and gave people a chance to have some of their questions answered.

More information on the goals and purpose of this series is available here: chf.org.au/introduction-my-health-record-webinar-series

These webinars were made possible through funding provided by the ADHA. CHF and the ADHA have signed an MoU that protects CHF’s right to speak independently.

Go to the webinars ⯆

 

Webinar 1: Privacy and Security

The opt-out period for My Health Record began recently, prompting much greater scrutiny of the project by media and the public. Central to that scrutiny has been questions of privacy and security of the system.

In this webinar, we briefly covered My Health Record in general, then open a panel discussion that will focus on the privacy and security of the system, how legislation and policy affects it, and whether and what changes should be made to improve the privacy and security of My Health Record.

Panellists

  • Kim Webber - General Manager, Strategy at the Australian Digital Health Agency
  • Karen Carey – Consumer Advocate, former chair of CHF and Chair of the NHMRC Community and Consumer Advisory Group
  • Dr Bruce Baer Arnold - Assistant Professor, Law at University of Canberra and Vice-chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation Board
  • Dr Charlotte Hespe - GP, Glebe Family Medical Centre and RACGP Vice President

Find out More

 

Details

Date and Time: 12:30pm AEST, 8 August 2018
Recording: youtu.be/5yhx4WZP6EM
Transcript: chf.org.au/sites/default/files/transcript_-_webinar_1.pdf

Watch the Video

Click the image above to view our Privacy and Security of My Health Record webinar.

"I, myself, have had five open heart surgeries and yet I still sometimes and the emergency department people say to me, "Do you suffer from anxiety attacks?" So I know that stigma is real and it's real at emergency times when people don't want it to be so I understand why people are sensitive, but having that in their record."
- Karen Carey, Consumer Advocate, former chair of CHF and Chair of the NHMRC Community and Consumer Advisory Group

See her full answer at 1:00:00

"We need to look a bit beyond what we're hearing, and be I think hard headed, and think about what are the implications,
discrimination perhaps, stigma, care, and ultimately respect for individuals. If the government was so concerned about privacy, why does it have to wait till five minutes to 12? "
- Dr Bruce Baer Arnold - Assistant Professor, Law at University of Canberra and Vice-chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation board

See his full answer at 20:43

 

Webinar 2: Overview of Digital Health

To properly understand My Health Record, it is important to know where it fits in the larger digital health landscape in Australia.

In this webinar, we discuss among other topics how My Health Record currently and could in the future interact with the rest of the Ausrtralian health system, the safety and quality impacts of digital health, and what else is happening in digital health.

Panellists

  • Garth McDonald, General Manager of Service Delivery, ADHA
  • Dr Christine Slade, Consumer Advocate
  • Dr Ian Hickie, Co-Director of the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney

Find out More

 

Details

Date and Time: 3pm AEST, 23 August 2018
Recording: youtu.be/jBHkHqlQvhI
Transcript: chf.org.au/sites/default/files/transcript_-_webinar_2.pdf

Watch the Video

Click the image above to view our Overview of Digital Health in Australia webinar.

"As a patient in a hospital that had paper and going across many different departments, I was always pleased to see the file arrive. I didn't realize at one point that it didn't have a summary page and that I was actually now the source of truth for my own care, which
frightened me quite a lot."
- Christine Slade, Consumer Advocate

See her full answer at 13:00

"I'm trying to take care of someone with a complex manic depressive bipolar illness. Has a bit in a hospital. Patient was taken care of yesterday. She got immune data in one hospital. She got medication data in another hospital. She doesn't know herself what all the answers to all those questions are, some as unreported, I'm traveling. I'm supposed to be making decisions about medications descriptions now using a 19th century system."
- Dr Ian Hickie, Co-Director of the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney

See his full answer at 11:00

Resources

 

Webinar 3: Benefits of My Health Record

A My Health Record system with the majority of Australians enrolled has many potential benefits for the health system in Australia.

In this webinar, we discuss among other topics the benefits to the individual, the benefits to the health system, the barriers to realising benefits and what work is underway to measure benefits. This will include a discussion of some of the risks and limits, however the risks will be looked at in greater detail in following webinars.

Panellists

  • Dr Amandeep Hansra – GP, ADHA Clinical Reference Lead, former CEO & Medical Director of Telstra’s telemedicine business, ReadyCare
  • Russell McGowan – Consumer Advocate
  • Dr Chris Pearce - GP, Academic, President of Australasian College of Health Informatics
  • Dr Chris Freeman - Pharmacist, Vice president Pharmaceutical Society of Australia

Find out More

 

Details

Date and Time: 12:30pm AEST, 30 August 2018
Recording: youtube.com/watch?v=xdOpbG8ZJo8
Transcript:chf.org.au/sites/default/files/transcript_-_webinar_3.pdf

Watch the Video

Click the image above to view our webinar on the Benefits of My Health Record.

"My Health Record will assist in delivering person-centred health care, which is what it should be about. So clinicians will want to use it if they want the best outcomes for their patients and if they want their patients to be partners in
their own health care."
- Russell McGowan, Consumer Advocate

See his full answer at 58:59

"Four times in the last couple of months I've had useful information that I've accessed through somebody's My Health Record that the patient hadn't told me, or had forgotten to tell me, and I didn't have access to it within my system. It's
just raised up for me the whole point about how this should be patient-centered information, not hospital-centered and clinician-centered information. And until we get to that point, we're always gonna be making mistakes and having trouble."
- Dr Chris Pearce - GP, President of Australasian College of Health Informatics

See his full answer at 6:00

 

Webinar 4: Risks of My Health Record

Understanding the risks of My Health Record as they apply to your own life is a vital step when deciding about whether to have a My Health Record or not.

In this webinar, we discuss among other topics the risks to privacy and security, the risk to community perceptions of the intersection between the health system and government, and what measures are in place to manage and mitigate these risks. This included a discussion of some of the benefits, however the benefits will be looked at in greater detail in a previous webinar.

Panellists

  • Tony Kitzelmann – ADHA Chief Information Security Officer and General Manager for the ADHA Cyber Security Centre
  • Dean Martin – Consumer Advocate, ADHA Consumer Advisory Committee member, Research Manager at Black Dog Institute
  • David Hansen – CEO of the Australian e-Health Research Centre, Chair of the Health Informatics Society of Australia board
  • Aaron Cogle – Executive Director, National Association of People with HIV Australia

Find out More

 

Details

Date and Time: 12:30pm AEST, 6 September 2018
Recording: https://youtu.be/M59yAJt_njM
Transcript chf.org.au/sites/default/files/transcript_-_webinar_4.pdf

Watch the Video

Click the image above to view our Risks of My Health Record webinar.

"The risk that I think My Health Record poses is the possibility that people won't be able to be open
and frank with their doctors because there is, in the back of their mind, a fear of that information won't stay between them and their doctor, and that there could be issues around criminalization or indeed any use that is not for a
specifically health related issue will curtail people's ability to speak open and frankly to their doctors."
- Aaron Cogle, Executive Director, National Association of People with HIV Australia

See his full answer at 4:19

"People say it's just a big database and the doctor can jump on or the health care provider can jump on and just browse the database. It's actually not correct. To be able to actually access the database, they need to conduct a conformance
search, they need to have a software, they need to registered with us. And we audit all
of that. We also, as part of our commitment ... and this an evolving capability that we've got going on as part of our enduring service, is to provide user behavior analytics so that we can actually look at what normal is and how health records are interacted with as part of a normal consumption pattern."
- Tony Kitzelmann, ADHA Chief Information Security Officer and General Manager for the ADHA Cyber Security Centre

See his full answer at 20:43

Resources

 

Webinar 5: Digital Inclusion and Health Literacy

To be able to effectively use My Health Record, a person must have a sufficient level of digital, data and health literacy. They also need to be able to access digital tools. Making a decision about whether or not you should have a My Health Record requires a person to make an assessment of their digital and health literacy, but it also raises important ethical questions about the merits of an opt-out model for the whole population.

In this webinar, we will discuss among other topics what skills are required to use My Health Record, the level of digital inclusion in Australia and discuss the ethics of the decision to opting people with low digital or health literacy into the My Health Record system.

 

Panellists

  • Karen Gallagher, ADHA, General Manager – Implementation, My Health Record
  • Dr Chris Moy, GP, Chair of the AMA Ethics and Medicolegal Committee
  • Louisa Walsh, Consumer Advocate, Researcher at La Trobe’s Centre for Health Communication and Participation
  • Mohammad Al-Khafaji, FECCA, Director – Strategy and Engagement

Find out More

 

Details

Date and Time: 3pm AEST, 13 September 2018
Recording: youtu.be/B-9Z7KpQqW0
Transcript chf.org.au/sites/default/files/transcript_-_webinar_5.pdf

Watch the Video

Click the image above to view our webinar on Digital Inclusion, Health Literacy and My Health Record.

"As My Health Record becomes more interactive, as it becomes more person controlled and person centered, then there's this increased need to address the barriers of digital and health literacy."
- Louisa Walsh, Consumer Advocate and Researcher at La Trobe’s Centre for Health Communication and Participation

See her full answer at 23:31

"Information availability is really key to literacy. My Health Record is a big change and a big shift in people being able to
be more involved in their care or for their carers or their family to be involved in their care because they've got information about themselves."
- Karen Gallagher, ADHA, General Manager – Implementation, My Health Record

See her full answer at 5:39

Resources

 

Webinar 6: Consumer Estimates

The final webinar of the series was an opportunity to summarise what has been covered, and put any remaining questions people had about My Health Record directly to representatives of the Federal Government.

In this webinar, a panel of health consumer advocates asked questions of a panel of representatives from the Federal Government, in a style similar to Senate Estimates. The consumer panellists also shared their thoughts and experiences with My Health Record.

 

Panellists

Representatives from Government:

  • Karen Gallagher, ADHA, General Manager – Implementation, My Health Record
  • Kim Webber - General Manager, Strategy at the Australian Digital Health Agency
  • Michael Frost, AIHW - Group Head, Primary Health Care and Veterans Group

Consumer Panellists:

  • Paige Burton - Consumer, 2017 Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations
  • Sharon Tonkin - Consumer and carer with 40+ years of rural health experience
  • Marc Niemes - Consumer, Digital and eLearning business founder, "Health is not something done to you, it is something you take part in"

Find out More

 

Details

Date and Time: 2pm AEDT, 17 October 2018
Recording: youtu.be/Ttz3eWx6BMU
Transcript: chf.org.au/sites/default/files/transcript_-_webinar_6.pdf

Watch the Video

Click the image above to view our Consumer Estimates webinar.
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"What is the point of that data? What is it being used for? People just want a bit more transparency around it. I don't think that's unreasonable. We can't just say, "People have suddenly learnt something
and they're angry about it," when actually we've seen time and time again things like this happen across the world."
- Paige Burton, Consumer, 2017 Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations

See her full comment at 55:40

"I hope I'm not flogging an issue, but I think we need to remember that there's a lot of people in the rural setting in the age bracket who can't even get money from the bank anymore, because they can't use an ATM and the bank's no longer in town. I think people with polypharmacy and comorbidities have got a huge gap in their IT abilities. We're going to have people who desperately need a centralized record not able to do any of this, and that worries me considerably."
- Sharon Tonkin, Consumer and carer with 40+ years of rural health experience

See her full answer at 39:24

CHF publications on My Health Record

Go to the webinars ⯆

Recent Submissions, Blogs and Media Releases on My Health Record are collected below. For a complete list of CHF's media and publications on digital health, click here: chf.org.au/digital-health-media-and-publication.