My Health Record (MHR)
Palliative care requires ongoing assessment of health needs, often by different members of a multidisciplinary care team, across diverse care settings.
Securely storing and sharing the health information of the older person is important to ensuring the quality and safety of palliative care, and to reduce unwanted, unnecessary or inappropriate interventions.
My Health Record is an online record-keeping and sharing tool that hosts key health information.
The system provides a portal for the older person and/or providers to store, share and access health information and records, including:
- shared health summary, providing a summary of the patient’s medical history and condition(s), current medications and current care
- discharge summaries
- event summaries
- MBS and PBS items
- pathology and diagnostic imaging results
- electronic referrals
- specialist letters
- advance care planning documents (uploaded by the patient).
Accessing information in My Health Record
To access the older person’s health information in My Health Record, your practice must:
Once registered, individual healthcare providers and other relevant employees can be authorised to access the My Health Record system on the organisation’s behalf.
Training for My Health Record is available at the My Health Record Online Training website.
Voluntary registration
My Health Record is a voluntary registration system. This means that not all Australians may be registered.
Identifying the older person’s registration with My Health Record may mean having conversations about privacy and data sovereignty, and any associated concerns with the security of digital systems.
The Australian Digital Health Agency has resources and information to support navigation of these conversations.
The Lowitja Institute has also published a discussion paper on Indigenous Data Governance for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities.
This may also mean that other health information sharing systems may need to be used. For example, a person may prefer a more localised system, within a State or Territory, like Queensland’s ACP Tracker.
Exploring these conversations with the older person is important in providing person-centred care that meets their needs and goals of care. However, sometimes older people and/or their families may refuse to register. It is important to respect their decision, and identify other opportunities to help store and share their health information and care plans.