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My Health Record at Melbourne Hand Surgery

This page is an archive of content migrated from a legacy Joomla site in 2026. It combines three articles: “Communication, Privacy, eHealth and My Health Record”, “My Health Record: Introduction to Specialist Practice, Resources for Specialist Practices”, and “Effective My Health Record Implementation in a Specialist Medical Practice” (a 2017 Avant-funded Quality Improvement project, later published in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2019). This content was accurate at the time of original publication but does not necessarily describe or reflect current practice. 

Communication, Privacy, eHealth and My Health Record

Created 11 September 2016, last modified 26 December 2016.

Our practice adopts eHealth practices wherever practicable to streamline processes, improve communication and maintain the security of patient information. This includes

Patient privacy

We respect patient privacy. Privacy consent is now collected as part of the online Patient Registration Form that patients complete when registering with the practice, rather than a separate downloadable consent form.

Our practice privacy policy can be accessed here. It explains how we collect, store, use and disclose your personal information; how you may access your personal information; how we protect the quality and security of your personal information; how you may seek correction of any personal information we hold; and how you may make a complaint about our handling of your personal information.

How is secure messaging used?

Secure messaging systems including Argus, HealthLink and MedicalObjects are used by our practice to send patient letters to your referring doctor. In many instances your doctor may send his or her referral to our practice via these systems. These electronic systems are faster and more secure than the traditional methods of fax or mail and use no paper. These messaging systems are encrypted so they are more secure than standard email.

What is the My Health Record?

“My Health Record is the new name of the national digital health record system. Having a My Health Record means your important health information like allergies, medical conditions and treatments, medicine details, test or scan reports can be digitally stored in one place.”

If you have a My Health Record this means that your treating doctor and our practice nurses can access your My Health Record at any time when we need to, unless you tell us that you do not want us to access it, or you set your privacy settings to restrict our access. We can also manually upload an Event Summary that contains important summary information about your treatment (including, for example, the type of prosthesis used in your surgery, or your pathology results). If results and Specialist Letters are uploaded to your My Health Record this means that if you visit another doctor in the future there is a record, which you have access to, of what happened in the past. We do not currently upload Specialist Letters to your My Health Record as our software vendor has not developed this functionality.

More information about My Health Record, including privacy options and frequently asked questions, is available at the My Health Record website.

What the My Health Record is not

The My Health Record does not replace electronic health record systems held by your treating doctors and practitioners. It does not replace secure messaging systems used by your referring doctor and Melbourne Hand Surgery to communicate about your care.

Only a selected portion of the information that is held in your medical records will be uploaded to your My Health Record. For example, your general practitioner may upload a summary document of your health, but will not upload details about every consultation that you have.

Similarly, your consultation notes from Melbourne Hand Surgery will not be uploaded to My Health Record. We do not anticipate that every consultation or procedure will result in an upload of information to your My Health Record.

You can request that a specialist upload specialist letters and summary information to your My Health Record, and you can also request that he or she not upload information to your My Health Record. However, uploading information is a manual process that is undertaken by your healthcare provider, and just as only a minority of Australians currently have a My Health Record, many healthcare providers are currently unable to access to My Health Record. Melbourne Hand Surgery is able to access and upload documents to My Health Record, but other specialists may not be able to.

The My Health Record does not replace the need for you to

  • provide a referral, if you wish to receive Medicare Benefits for your treatment
  • bring scans or x-rays and CDs of radiology investigations to your consultation

How can I register for a My Health Record?

Visit the My Health Record website here for instructions on how to register for a My Health Record.

How do I consent to the use of My Health Record?

If you have a My Health Record you are taken to have given consent for your healthcare providers to access your My Health Record as part of your healthcare. If you do not wish for us to access your My Health Record you can a) set access controls on your My Health Record, or b) advise us that you do not wish for us to access your My Health Record. If you do not wish for us to upload information to your My Health Record please advise us.

If you do not wish for any healthcare provider to access or upload information to your My Health Record then we recommend that you contact the Australian Digital Health Agency to cancel your My Health Record.

We may access your My Health Record while you are an active patient of this practice, for the purposes of:

  • accessing your Shared Health Summary, Specialist Letters or Event Summaries (should any exist)
  • uploading an Event Summary
  • uploading a Specialist Letter (once our software vendor develops this functionality)

You can monitor which healthcare organisations have accessed or updated your My Health Record by checking online or by calling the Australian Digital Health Agency on 1800 723 471.

What information may be included in an Event Summary?

If we upload an Event Summary to your My Health Record it will identify our practice as the organisation that uploaded the information, and may include:

  • the date of your procedure or surgery
  • your pathology or radiology report(s)
  • details of any adverse reaction(s), such as a reaction to antibiotics or analgesic medications

If you detect that any of the information is incorrect you can request that we remove the Event Summary. We can then upload an Event Summary with the correct information. It is not possible to edit documents that have been uploaded to My Health Record, but they can be deleted and replaced.

What information may be included in a Specialist Letter?

If we upload a Specialist Letter to your My Health Record it will identify our practice as the organisation that uploaded the letter. The letter will contain the words in the letter written by Dr Tomlinson to your referring doctor and any interested parties (for example, your hand therapist). It may include your contact details, descriptions of your symptoms, your hand diagnosis, your proposed treatment plan, your medications, your medical problems, your pathology or radiology results and details of your examination findings.

Any Specialist Letters that are uploaded to the My Health Record system are uploaded on the basis that they may be useful to you or to a party other than the person or persons that the letter is addressed to.

Managing access, privacy and security within My Health Record

For more information on how you can manage access, privacy and security within My Health Record please click here.

My Health Record: Introduction to Specialist Practice, Resources for Specialist Practices

In 2017 Melbourne Hand Surgery conducted a Quality and Improvement project examining the introduction of My Health Record within specialist practice, and aimed to establish the resources and protocols necessary for safe and effective use of the My Health Record at our practice. To assist other Australian specialist practices, we have made our resources and protocols available for download subject to a Creative Commons License.

Melbourne Hand Surgery does not warrant that these resources are free from error or are applicable to your individual circumstances. They were prepared at a specific point in time, based on the legislation, policies and context then applicable, and are provided on an “as is” basis, for information purposes only. Melbourne Hand Surgery takes no responsibility for any loss or damage to any person as a result of using these resources.

Policies and Procedures


Risk Analysis


Flow Charts


Online Training Resources

The Australian Digital Health Agency offers two online self-directed learning resources for staff of specialist practices at My Health Record Online Training (training.digitalhealth.gov.au). Employees can register an individual account and login to access the training modules, downloading a certificate of completion on finishing each module.

Melbourne Hand Surgery acknowledges the support of an Avant Quality Improvement Practice Grant in undertaking this project.

Effective My Health Record Implementation in a Specialist Medical Practice

In January 2017 Melbourne Hand Surgery commenced a Quality Improvement project with the aim of achieving and documenting the process of effective implementation of the My Health Record system within a specialist medical practice.

Previously called the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) and rebranded the My Health Record (MyHR) in 2016, the system is a secure online health record system established by the Australian Government. With over 4.7 million Australians registered for a MyHR including 15% of the Victorian population, our practice is an early adopter of MyHR. We have been advised that we are currently one of only two specialist practices in Australia that are routinely uploading information to MyHR.

We have aimed to identify and proactively address the legislative, privacy and medicolegal issues associated with MyHR use. We recognise that health record security is a significant concern and we have strict policies regarding MyHR use and access, which is only available to medical practitioners and registered nurses at our practice.

The very busy first phase of our project is now complete, we have traversed the registration processes for Melbourne Hand Surgery to access the MyHR, conducted staff training, implemented new policies and procedures, put information about our MyHR use in our patient information documents and perioperative information, and collated 13 weeks of data of our active use of Event Summary uploads for patients who are having surgery in hospital.

What information is included in an Event Summary? The nature and date of the surgery performed, any pathology results, details of any prosthesis used, the name of the hospital where the surgery was performed and any other pertinent information.

What have we found so far? We were surprised to find that although only 11.6% of our patients were registered with MyHR at the time of their hospital surgery, similar numbers of patients elected to register with MyHR between their surgery date and their first post operative visit. We have therefore uploaded Event Summaries for 21.7% of eligible patients since we commenced the project. All patients who have a MyHR have agreed to having an Event Summary uploaded to their MyHR.

So what’s next? We have commenced the second phase of our MyHR project and are offering Event Summary uploads to all patients who undergo surgery in hospital plus patients who undergo procedures in the rooms, such as needle fasciotomy and excision of skin lesions. Currently we are unable to upload Specialist Letters to MyHR, while our clinical software allows us to integrate with Argus, HealthLink and Medical Objects to send Specialist Letters to referring doctors via secure messaging, it does not allow upload to MyHR.

This project was published in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2019: Tomlinson J, My Health Record implementation in private specialist practice, MJA 2019; 210(6). The full article is also available to download here: My Health Record implementation in private specialist practice (PDF).

Melbourne Hand Surgery acknowledges the Avant Quality Improvement Grants Program for financial assistance with this project.