Quality Assurance and Privacy

Quality Assurance

Accreditation process assesses the quality of a general practice against professionally developed and trialled standards.
Accreditation involves a three-yearly cycle where practices perform self-assessment against the RACGP Standards for General Practices and then request a survey visit of the practice’s organisation and facilities. A continuous quality improvement cycle to improve the internal organisation and management is maintained after the assessment as practices work towards the next accreditation time.
On achievement of accreditation a practice receives an Accreditation Certificate and recognition as an accredited general practice.

Accredited by QPA

Privacy and Collection Statement

Wodonga West Medical Clinic is committed to protecting your privacy. We are bound by the Privacy Act (1998), the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act (2000) and the Victorian Health Management of Health Information in Private Medical Practice 1st Edition (2002) which set out a number of principles concerning the protection of your personal information. This Privacy Collection Statement sets out the type of information we collect, how we use it and who we share it with. It may be amended from time to time and a current version is available from the practice privacy officer, on our website or from our practice manager. The personal information we collect and store may include your name, birth date, current and previous addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, occupation, family medical history and your medical history. We understand you may not want to provide this information to us. That’s fine; however, this will make it harder for us to treat your medical problems. We collect your personal information in a variety of ways. These include:

Directly from you, either on the phone or in person at the surgery.
New patient forms and medical forms that we ask you to fill out.
Letters from specialists
Radiology and pathology results
Information from Hospitals and other medical practices that you visit.
Information from a previous General practitioner
Insurance agents and Lawyers (where appropriate – mainly in relation to issues workcover)
Employers (again only in relation to workcover issues)
Family members

Your personal information may be used to:

Identify you
Treat your health issues
Carry out quality improvement activities
In research studies (either conducted by us or a third party)
Contact you in regards to your health
Write reports for insurance or workcover when required

Information we have collected may be released to a third party only under certain circumstances and a written release, signed in the last 12 months by you will have to be provided by anyone requesting information. These include:

When requested by you to be transferred to another Medical Clinic
Insurance companies
Work cover
Lawyer (under the privacy act 1998)
Employer (mainly medicals that have been requested by the employer or workcover issues)
To you under the privacy act 1998
Courthouse under subpoena
Notifiable diseases

The doctors may choose to release your information to a specialist or allied health provider if they wish to refer you for further treatment, this will be done on the basis of informed consent. If the information to be released is for the purposes of a referral or further testing, and the client has consented to this, then written patient consent is not required. Otherwise, a written consent form that specifies what information is to be released and to whom, signed by the client and witnessed and dated, should be obtained. This information will assist in your health care, however if there is anything you do not wish released just let the doctor or staff know. We take all reasonable precautions to ensure that the personal information we collect, use and disclose is accurate, complete and up to date. However, the accuracy of that information largely depends on the details you give us. Please let us know if there are any errors and keep us up to date with any changes. We welcome any request by you to access your personal information (subject to some exceptions allowed by law). If you would like to do so, please let us know. For security reasons we will ask you to put your request in writing. We might also charge a fee to search and provide access to your information, but this will be discussed with you at the time of your request.

Patient records can be accessed by staff employed by the practice. All staff sign a confidentiality agreement as part of their employment contract. Records are only accessed to assist in patient’s health care. Our practice ensures that our practice computers and servers comply with the RACGP computer security checklist and that: computers are only accessible via individual password access to those in the practice team who have appropriate levels of authorisation computers have screensavers or other automated privacy protection devices are enabled to prevent unauthorised access to computers. Any paper records are securely kept in offsite storage or scanned in to the computer and destroyed after an appropriate time frame.
If you have any questions in relation to privacy, please contact us (02) 6056 2447 between 9.00am and 5.00pm (EST), Monday to Friday. Alternatively, you can e-mail: wodwest@wwmc.com.au