Moira Paterson

The CDM-Net Project: The Development, Implementation and Evaluation of a Broadband-Based Network for Managing Chronic Disease

Background. In Australia most chronic disease management is funded by Medicare Australia through General Practitioner Management Plans (GPMPs) and Team Care Arrangements (TCAs). Identified barriers may be reduced effectively using a broadband-based network known as the Chronic Disease Management Service (CDMS). Aims. To measure the uptake and adherence to CDMS, test CDMS, and assess the adherence of health providers and patients to GPMPs and TCAs generated through CDMS. Methods. A single cohort before and after study. Results. GPMPs and TCAs increased. There was no change to prescribed medicines or psychological quality of life. Attendance at allied health professionals increased, but decreased at pharmacies. Overall satisfaction with CDMS was high among GPs, allied health professionals, and patients. Conclusion. This study demonstrates proof of concept, but replication or continuation of the study is desirable to enable the impact of CDMS on diabetes outcomes to be determined.

Health privacy: the draft Australian national health privacy code and the shared longitudinal electronic health record

An explicit distinction between shared electronic health records and those at the point of care is required when referring to electronic health records. The former raises particular privacy issues discussed in this paper in relation to HealthConnect and the Draft Australian National Health Privacy Code. In addition to a number of revisions to the code, the analysis recommends that related legislation such as archival and freedom of information law should be reconciled as much as possible within the code, so that a long-term view of the uses, retention and preservation of the longitudinal electronic health record is balanced with privacy, confidentiality and public interest.

Emerging Challenges in Privacy Law: Comparative Perspectives

Introduction: 1. Emerging challenges in privacy law: comparative perspectives Normann Witzleb, David Lindsay, Moira Paterson and Sharon Rodrick Part I. Reforming the Data Protection Frameworks - Australian and EU Perspectives: 2. Privacy law reform: challenges and opportunities Timothy Pilgrim 3. Responding to new challenges to privacy through law reform: a privacy advocates perspective Nigel Waters 4. The reform of EU data protection: towards more effective and more consistent data protection across the EU Peter Hustinx Part II. Privacy in European Human Right Instruments: 5. Protection of privacy in the EU, individual rights and legal instruments Udo Fink 6. A world data privacy treaty? Globalisation and modernisation of Council of Europe Convention 108 Graham Greenleaf Part III. Privacy in Private Law - Common Law and Statutory Causes of Action: 7. Protection against intrusion in English legislation Nicole Moreham 8. Privacy: common law or human right? Michael Tilbury 9. English privacy law in the light of the Leveson report Eric Barendt Part IV. Privacy, Surveillance and Control: 10. Surveillance in public places: the regulatory dilemma Moira Paterson 11. Privacy and young people: controlling anti-social behaviour through loss of anonymity Thomas Crofts Part V. Privacy and the Internet: 12. Data privacy law and the Internet: policy challenges Lee Bygrave 13. The right to be forgotten in European data protection law David Lindsay 14. Privacy online: reform beyond law reform Megan Richardson and Andrew Kenyon 15. Privacy protection and data clouds in Germany and the influence of European law Dieter Dorr and Eva Aernecke Part VI. Privacy, the Courts and the Media: 16. Open justice, privacy and suppressing identity in legal proceedings: whats in a name? And would anonymity smell as sweet? Sharon Rodrick 17. Interim injunctions for invasions of privacy: challenging the rule in Bonnard v. Perryman Normann Witzleb.

Privacy Protection in Australia: The Need for an Effective Private Sector Regime

Australia in the 1990s, like most other industrialised countries, is characterised by its high level of technological development, the increased automation of transactions between businesses and their customers and the reversal of pre-existing trends towards large government. These factors have combined to create an environment in which the issue of privacy and, in particular, the need for a private sector regime to protect privacy has begun to feature on the political agenda. The need to regulate personal information became a matter of concern for the first time in Australia in the context of the controversy generated by an unsuccessful attempt to introduce a national identity card, the Australia Card.1 The main concern at that time focussed on the need to regulate the activities of the government; the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), which was enacted in conjunction with initiatives to extend the use of the tax file number as a de facto identifier, covered only the activities of the Commonwealth public sector. Today, however, the impact of technology on the collection and use of personal information by Australian businesses and the concerns about the adverse trade implications of failing to regulate these activities have led to a growing realisation that there is a need to regulate the activities of the private sector, including the large number of bodies which have been formally transferred from the public to the private sector or which are performing functions that were once performed by government organisations.

New rights of access to and amendment of medical records: An analysis of the relevant policy issues relating to proposed changes affecting private sector health consumers

This paper describes the current legal position concerning patient access to medical records in Australia and New Zealand, including the controversial decision of the High Court of Australia in Breen v Williams and the newly enacted Health Records (Privacy and Access) Act 1997 (ACT), tt argues that, while there are a number of difficult issues which need to be dealt with in the context of any access law, there are strong policy arguments in favour of patient access to medical records and that the existing legal regime in Australia, with the exception of that in the ACT, compares unfavourably with that under the Privacy Act 1993 (NZ). It also identifies the main sources of the increasing pressure for statutory reform and provides an analysis and evaluation of the four alternative models for extending access to private health records in Australia.

Freedom of information and the public interest: the Commonwealth experience

ABSTRACT This article commences with a discussion of the concept of public interest generally and more specifically within the context of the common law. It then considers the role of public interest tests in the Freedom of information (FOI) legislation of Commonwealth countries and presents a taxonomy of public interest tests in Commonwealth FOI legislation. It concludes by considering the merits of the ground-breaking developments in the approach to public interest tests in Australian FOI law and argues that there are valuable insights to be gained from the experience of this early FOI adopter.