Tim Churches wrote:
As long as it is *informed* consent. My view is that it needs to be explained to patients thus: "We will be sending your medical details contained in a discharge summary to your GP via unencrypted email, which is like the electronic version of writing on the back of a postcard and sending it without an envelope through Australia Post, except that what we will be doing offers less privacy protection than a postcard because computers owned by third parties (but we don't know who they are) can automatically read and make copies of the information as the information passes through them. You need to balance such privacy concerns against the fact that by sending the information via unencrypted email, your GP may receive the information more rapidly than otherwise, which may improve your care, although we could also fax the information which probably has a similar effect on your care and provides better protection for your privacy but may be less convenient for your GP to file away and is more hassle for us to send. And there is a much better system called encrypted email that both protects your privacy and has the advantages of speed and filing/storage convenience, but we failed to manage to arrange to do that although others have succeeded. So, do you consent?"
Tim, you're a genius. This is the best summary that I have seen of the situation.
-- Oliver Frank, general practitioner 255 North East Road, Hampstead Gardens, South Australia 5086 Phone 08 8261 1355 Fax 08 8266 5149 Mobile 0407 181 683 _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
