My Health Record offers a safe and secure place for people to store their key health information digitally. It is available to patients and healthcare providers and can be accessed anytime, including in times of a medical emergency, wherever there is an internet connection available.
Patient benefits
Having a My Health Record means you don’t have to remember things like dates of past appointments, test results, names of medicines and their dosages or carry around paperwork. While anyone can have one, people who have multiple health conditions and several clinicians involved in their care benefit the most. It is particularly useful for people who travel and has helped people displaced from their homes and communities during times of natural disaster.
What is in a record
Individuals and health professionals can upload information to My Health Record. This includes for:
- allergies, medicines, adverse reactions
- immunisation history
- diagnostic imaging reports, such as ultrasounds and x-rays
- pathology reports, such as blood test results
- hospital discharge summaries
- goals of care and advance care planning documents
- organ donor status
- emergency contact details
- personal health notes
- prescription and medicine dispense records and pharmacist shared medicines list
- shared health summaries, which is a clinical record of your health status at a single point in time
- event summaries, which contain information about a significant healthcare event you may have had
- e-Referrals and specialist letters.
Managing privacy
My Health Record is protected by legislation and a range of security controls. All documents are set to give healthcare providers general access but people can change who they do or don’t want to access their information.
‘People can nominate a representative, such as family and carers, to view or help manage their My Health Record. People can also be an authorised representative for their child or older person who lacks capacity to make decisions for themselves.
How to access
To access My Health Record, you need a myGov account. myGov is a secure way to access Australian Government services online.