Australian Medical Association (AMA) head Tony Bartone has said that the peak lobby group for Australian GPs will ensure that patients' files are protected from unwarranted access as part of the My Health Record scheme, flagging he may support a change in the law governing the system.
Australians have three months to opt out of having a My Health Record file created for them and stored by the government to include their medical history, health summary, prescriptions and other medical information.
One of the major concerns cited by people choosing to opt out of the system is over who can access the file and in what circumstances.
On Tuesday the parliamentary library said that under section 70 of the My Health Record legislation, law enforcement and other government agencies can access health records without a court order.
But health minister Greg Hunt says that while the legislation allows access without a court order, the policy of the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) that oversees the record prevents the information being released.
As the parliamentary library pointed out, however, unlike legislation, policy can be changed at the whim of any government of the day without needing for a vote to be held in parliament.
This confusion has doctors worried about the future of the health record system. Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, the new head of the AMA, Dr Tony Bartone, said he had received written undertakings from Hunt and the head of the ADHA that My Health Record files cannot be accessed by law enforcement without a court order.
.@amapresident: I've received written undertakings from the health minister and digital health authority that there's no way for police to access My Health Record data without a court order. MORE: https://t.co/ykweMevBOK #newsday https://t.co/JPbwRliuBn
"Anything that will compromise, that will not be withstood by our members," he said. "I will ensure that any ambiguity in the differences between what the legislation says and what is the practicality of the interpretation, including the assurances, are crystal clear and there can be no ambiguity for our members or the public going forward."
But Bartone says My Health Record should be an opt-out system.
"We've come to a tipping point," he said. "We need to grow the system to a point of maturity so it can develop and become more robust, more informative. And until we have enough people with a record, and until we have enough providers uploading information and enough developers with the necessary tools to actually increase the utility, to increase the performance, it's going to be stuck at too little, too late."
Bartone said he had sought a meeting with Hunt in the coming days and said the AMA would support legislative reform if that was what was needed.