EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Issued by Authority of the Minister for Health
Health Legislation Amendment (eHealth) Act 2015
Health Legislation Amendment (eHealth-Application Day) Proclamation 2016
Items 113, 115-119, 121, 124-126 and 128-134 of Part 2 of Schedule 1 to the Health Legislation Amendment (eHealth) Act 2015 (the Act) describe amendments that will apply on or after the application day. Item 111 of that Part defines the application day to mean a single day to be fixed by Proclamation for the purposes of that item, however if such a date is not fixed by 26 May 2016, the application day will be 27 May 2016.
The purpose of the Proclamation is to fix 1 March 2016 as the application day for the purposes of item 111 of Part 2 of Schedule 1 to the Act.
The Act amended the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records Act 2012 (renamed the My Health Records Act 2012), Healthcare Identifiers Act 2010 and several other Acts to implement the Government’s response to the Review of the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record, December 2013 and the recommendations of the Healthcare Identifiers Act and Service Review, Final Report 2013.
The My Health Record system (previously known as the personally controlled electronic health record system) allows individuals and their healthcare providers to access their key health information online where and when they need it. A My Health Record is an electronic summary of an individual’s health records.
The Proclamation will apply amendments that affect the legal obligations of participants in the My Health Record system (the System Operator, registered healthcare provider organisations, registered contracted service providers, registered repository operators and registered portal operators), including by:
- applying civil and criminal penalties to the unauthorised collection, use or disclosure of My Health Record system information, of healthcare identifiers or of other information collected in relation to either the My Health Record system or Healthcare Identifiers Service, and to the removal of My Health Record system information from Australia;
- increasing the penalty for failure to comply with My Health Records Rules;
- creating an exception to copyright infringement so that the My Health Record system can operate without the need to rely on intellectual property licenses; and
- clarifying the requirements to notify data breaches.
Schedule 1 of the Act commenced on 27 November 2015.
The Proclamation is a legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003.