NiQ Health's CarePlus™ Meeting the New Australian Privacy Principles Requirements
Perth, Western Australia (PRWEB) August 27, 2014 -- Enhancements have been made to privacy laws within Australia and were introduced in March 2014, with thirteen Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) introduced. These APPs regulate the handling of personal information by organisations; health service providers must comply with these principles. These new APPs also introduce civil penalties for institutions and individuals should breaches of privacy occur.
Smartphone and mobile technology use within healthcare for communication, medical diagnosis and information exchange continues to grow. This presents new challenges for healthcare organisations when attempting to protect patient privacy. Recent studies have been conducted to evaluate smartphone use with clinical staff, one particular study found that 100% of training doctors used their smartphones for clinical photos, with 85% of these doctors storing over 100 of these pictures on their smartphones.
The new APPs require organisations to take reasonable steps to protect the personal information it holds and take active measures to ensure the security of this information. Patient information and photographs stored on unsecured devices can constitute a breach of patient privacy. Under the new APPs, civil penalties have been introduced which may lead to institutions being fined up to $1,700,000 and individual doctors fines up to $340,000 for patient privacy breaches.
With the enhanced legislation and harsher penalties, health service providers should be searching for solutions to prevent privacy breaches occurring. CarePlus™ is able to offer this solution through their integration with Mobile Connect. CarePlus™ Mobile Connect is available on Apple®, Android®, Blackberry® and selected Cisco® devices. The application is also able to meet the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements, which protects patient privacy in the United States. A short video on CarePlus™ Mobile Connect can be viewed here.
The CarePlus™ Nurse Call solution also meets international regulations for Nurse Call Systems as medical devices. The Therapeutic Good Administration (TGA) now regulates Nurse Call Systems as medical devices, following an international trend started by the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF) to harmonise the definition of a medical device to include Nurse Call Systems. CarePlus™ meets TGA and various international regulations surrounding medical devices. CarePlus™ is one of the few US Food & Drug Administration certified and audited Nurse Call Systems available in Australia. For more information on the importance of these regulations, NiQ Health CEO Andrew Rothon recently published an article available to view here.
NiQ Health’s CarePlus™ significantly improves the workflow and efficiency of clinicians and caregivers while simultaneously combatting growing concerns within the healthcare environment. CarePlus™ can be considered “middleware in a box” integrating smartphones, paging, wireless and VOIP telephony, ward signs, large screen information boards, email, patient entertainment terminals, duress systems and Building Management Systems (BMS). CarePlus™ provides extensive reporting and Business Intelligence software capabilities providing significant workflow productivity efficiencies and improved patient safety. More information can be found at http://www.careplus-niqhealth.com.au.
Sarah Binns, NiQ Health, http://www.careplus-niqhealth.com, +61 417761316, [email protected]
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