Australian Medical Association

Genetic testing will increasingly play a vital role in mainstream health care in terms of preventive health and diagnosing and treating illness. This position statement addresses various aspects of genetic testing including access, consent and genetic counselling, privacy, genetic discrimination, direct to consumer genetic tests, public and professional education, workforce and infrastructure, research, gene patents, and genetic selection. 

Genetic testing will increasingly play a vital role in mainstream health care in terms of preventive health and diagnosing and treating illness. This position statement addresses various aspects of genetic testing including access, consent and genetic counselling, privacy, genetic discrimination, direct to consumer genetic tests, public and professional education, workforce and infrastructure, research, gene patents, and genetic selection.

The AMA welcomes the decision by the Privacy Commissioner to issue a fresh public interest determination covering the collection of family and social medical histories by medical practitioners and other health service providers.

This determination ensures that doctors can continue to collect third party health information that is relevant to a patient's family or social history without the family member having to give their consent.

The purpose of this Guideline is to clarify the responsibilities of medical practitioners, patients, and relevant third parties regarding certificates certifying illness ("sickness certificates") within the context of the doctor-patient relationship.

The AMA has developed a Privacy Resource handbook to help doctors comply with the Privacy Act 1988.

The Resource handbook is based on the Privacy Act 1988 in force as at 1 July 2010.

The AMA intends to update this Resource Book if the proposed changes become law.

AMA Submission to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee on the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 and Healthcare Identifiers (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010

The AMA considers healthcare identifiers are an essential building block towards the implementation of electronic health records, and we are therefore a strong supporter of their introduction. Healthcare identifiers will facilitate the secure access to, and appropriate sharing of, electronic patient information by healthcare providers.

We support the passage of the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 and the Healthcare Identifiers (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010.

Establishment of the Healthcare Identifier Service was agreed to by the Council of Australian Governments in 2006 as part of the national approach towards accelerating work on electronic health records to improve the safety of patients and improve efficiency for healthcare providers.

In July 2009, the Department of Health and Ageing released a discussion paper on legislative proposals to support the establishment and implementation of unique identifiers for healthcare purposes and the privacy of health information.

The AMA submission on the discussion paper is supported by the AMA Position Statement on Unique Healthcare Identifiers in 2008.

Government is taking a bold step in legislating to gain access to the private health records of all Australians.

An exposure draft of legislation quietly released on the Thursday night before Easter will give government the right to access all information recorded by doctors on individual patients records.

The legislation reverses current legal protections for patient privacy, ensuring no part of the patient record is protected.  The patient record will be completely exposed, extracts obtained, copied, retained and potentially submitted in court for all to see.

AMA President, Dr Rosanna Capolingua, described the legislation as “deeply disturbing”. 

The AMA Joint Submission highlights concerns that the proposed arrangements will impose additional requirements on registrants to provide information, including workforce data, to the relevant board as a condition of registration, and extend existing arrangements for information sharing about registered medical practitioners between various government agencies.

AMA comments on the Review of Australian Privacy Law, Discussion Paper 72